Boronia

Album review

Amiable fuzz-pop duo Hockey Dad emerged in 2014, laying claim to summer's easy vibes with the five-song EP Dreamin'. A little bit cheerful, a little bit slacker, Dreamin' was filled with pleasantly rambunctious jams like "Babes," "Lull City," and "I Need a Woman," the latter of which also finds a home here on Boronia, their debut LP for Brooklyn indie Kanine Records. Hockey Dad (a somewhat obscure reference to a Simpsons episode) is the partnership of lifelong friends Zach Stephenson (guitar) and Billy Fleming (drums) who hail from the coastal Australian town of Windang in New South Wales. Surfers, skaters, and eventually rockers, the two pals began jamming garage-style in their early teens, forging a carefree sound based around their beach town lifestyle. Boronia is the name of the street they grew up on and if the album bearing that same name isn't a particularly ambitious platter, it is certainly fun and ultimately relatable. Sporting a slightly more robust sound than on their EP, Boronia is high on rowdy beach-punk fuzz, rhythmic thump, and some tuneful songwriting. Though many of album's songs are populated with bass and a handful of subtle overdubs, Hockey Dad are, at their core, a stripped-down guitar-and-drums duo with Stephenson's rusty tenor providing the strong melodic hooks. There are a few standouts strewn throughout like "Jump the Gun," "So Tired," and "Laura," but mostly it's the kind of long-player that works best blaring in its entirety from the speakers of a sun-roasted beach cruiser dashboard on the way to someplace fun.
© Timothy Monger /TiVo