Review: The Millennial Club cast irresistible glow on new EP, ‘summer nights’

So-Cal sun burns hotter than most. And the musical scheme, planted in the loose sands of Long Beach or perhaps Malibu, bleeds from rose-pinks to fire reds, rushes of color owed largely to The Beach Boys when they arrived in the 1960s. A youthful recklessness paired with wistful, bubbly lyrics, wrapped tightly around earnest pop hooks, and songwriting has long felt its lasting effects. Decades later, such a mood would resurface in 2009, swapping out sun-bleached confection for melancholia and chillwave. As Pitchfork observed, “Summertime now is about disorientation.”

Long hot summers, crowded drugs, booze, and sticky-hot flings, fade into brisk autumn air, and so the music trends down into more lethargic tones and textures, feeling languid yet remaining deeply heartfelt and urgent. The Millennial Club’s summer nights EP beholds itself to all that came before, marching through lo-fi fuzz bound and honored by Best Coast ⏤ while casting their own assortment of voodoo tricks.

“Seeing what’s at stake / Would you be my girl / Would you be my world,” vocalist Andres Owens heaves off broken ribs with “like i do.” He’s breathless, running wild and free as August yawns and stretches into a warming lull, and his inability to control his emotions does its share of torment. He lurches into and out of love, only letting his wounds barely heal before he undergoes another lovesick bite. Sunset-dipped with a low-riding groove, “summer nights” poses his self-intoxication around the beauty and lush countryside in direct view, and he takes the scenery in with healthy, throaty gulps. He slides with silky bravado smack into “girls that ain’t u,” opting for R&B radiance and a seductive vocal line.

Saxophone plays a key role, a fixture of soul and jazz music, woven into the EP’s backone. Right up until fiery embers crackle and smoke on the closer “anymore,” a bittersweet page ripped out of a summer long faded and worn from memory, the indie-pop band ⏤ rounded out with Jared Ortiz (bass, keyboard), Jake Stevenson (guitar, sax), and Tyler Kamei (drums) ⏤ release bottled-up emotions and toss them into oncoming raging tides. summer nights excels in its masterful mood-building, and they allow it to totally overtake your senses, enveloping, cleansing, and somehow illuminated from the inside out.

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