Written by: Eric Thompson

So here’s the thing: I’ve been obsessed with “Honey Do,” the first single off of Beverly’s Careers, for about four weeks now. Frankie Rose (Vivian Girls, Crystal Stilts, Dum Dum Girls) and Drew Citron (Avan Lava, The Pains of Being Pure at Heart) have a staggering amount of indie cred between the two of them. And, well, just watch the video below. Seriously, go ahead. This is important.

[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zAG0EhVPUR0&w=560&h=315]

 

It’s one of those perfectly simple little songs that can just dominate a summer. The video is a pretty great compliment to it too. Shot ostensibly with students from Austin High School, it’s a mix of smiling carefree-ish kids and contemplative gazing at the camera slash into the distance, in black and white no less. Also, there’s skateboarding. I especially like the one dude having a hearty laugh as he flips the camera the bird. As good as the video is, though, it’s the song that has to do the heavy lifting in terms of our enjoyment. Four weeks later, all I can say about that is, “goddamn, that’s one good-ass guitar-pop tune.” It definitely holds up to many repeated listens.

But, unfortunately, the rest of the album doesn’t. As much as I wanted to love Careers after almost a month of jamming to “Honey Do,” it just ain’t there. With a couple exceptions, most of the rest of the album comes off like half formed noodlings that probably needed more time to coalesce into something more than they are. Take “Planet Birthday” for example, a song in which that shining distorted guitar is mostly absent except as a source of keening feedback. The bass line, while pretty nice, just can’t carry the song. And the repetitions are the uninteresting sorts that quickly grow tiresome. Case in point: the record’s final track, “Black and Grey.” It doesn’t go much of anywhere for about three minutes. Then, something really interesting begins to happen. One of those wall of distortion guitar moments starts building. At which point, the song ends. It’s like a forty-five second teaser for the places this album could have gone.

While none of the other ten songs live up to the promise of the single, there are a couple that deserve a few listens. “Yales Life” is a brooding track in which an intriguingly dissonant synthesizer chimes in every so often, following some really nice vocal harmonies. And “Hong Kong Hotel” features an enchantingly fuzzy picked chord progression on the bridges. The clincher here is that the song picks up and goes somewhere, ends up someplace other than where it started. If only this were the rule on Careers and not the exception.

Disappointment sucks. But what are you going to do? “Honey Do” is still a monster of a summer jam.