ALBUM REVIEW: BLEACHED - RIDE YOUR HEART
Written by Shirley Parodi
You might be tempted to dismiss Bleached’s debut album as a collection of mundane, melodramatic, songs about lovesick longing, but play it back a couple of times and you’ll realize that Ride Your Heart has a backbone. A well-devised balance of 70’s inspired garage punk and melodic Cali pop-rock, with surf rock overtones scattered here and there (check out “Guy Like You;” really beachy), this is the sort of know-how and intuition that can only be the symptom of experience. From growing up in a musical family in the San Fernando Valley, to touring with their moderately successful former punk band, Mika Miko, sisters Jen and Jessie Calvin have been on the music scene since they were fairly young. After Mika Miko disbanded, the girls worked on some independent projects before reconvening to form Bleached in 2010.
The album has been a while in the works, but the end result is something sweet. In fact, “sweet” is a good way to describe much a about this album (not at all in a patronizing way): sweet melodies driven by sweet guitar riffs and punk rock drum rolls, and sweet harmonies sung by sweet voices with sweet catchy lyrics about lost love. These are the most lighthearted sounding breakup songs ever, but with plenty of variation to keep things interesting. There’s a certain “California Dreamin’” quality to both “Ride Your Heart” (the album’s namesake) and “Outta My Mind,” despite the former’s staticky guitar riffs and the latter’s hard hitting manic bridge. An Echoey, tinkery intro takes you somewhat by surprise before giving way to the steady rhythm of “Dead in Your Head.” These are juxtaposed to the more quintessential punk jams “Looking for a Fight” and “Waiting by the Telephone.”
The album’s sound and lyrics mirror the erratic emotions experienced when love goes wrong. The honeymoon is over in “Love Spell” when Calvin sings, “I don’t want to see you anymore,” immediately followed by “Searching Through the Past” which laments, “I been missing you so long/Baby won’t you please come on back to me?” “Dead in Your Head,” is a coming to terms with the end of a relationship: “Time to figure out what you want/’Cause you know baby, it’s our timing that was off/Time to figure out where it all went wrong/’Cause you know baby, It’s gonna hit you so hard.” Subsequently comes “Dreaming Without You,” a song about moving on: “When you see me on the street, don’t try and stop me/’Cause I’m already dreaming without you.”
Catchy? Yes. Music to paint your toes to? Sure. Music to run away to the beach with and get over a failed romance? Why not? Take it at face value if you want, but Ride You Heart’s melding of sounds that are uniquely West Coast, laced with infectious rhythms, melodies, and lovesick hooks, make it absolutely more than just another day at the beach.