Holiday Shores' ambition far exceeds its members' recording budget. The band's boyish vocal harmonies wash in and out with the tide, and reverb radiates from the guitars like heat off a sun-baked parking lot. The summery hooks must come easy, because everything else on Columbus'd the Whim — the bouncing pianos, the soaring vocal harmonies — sounds like the product of copious labor, as "Bradley Bear" suggests.
Still, when it all gets loud, Holiday Shores spills everything it's got on the mix. "Bradley Bear" may be a little messy at times, but the band cleans it up with a slow build toward pop cacophony. The group makes slight references to surf rock, The Beach Boys and even early Modest Mouse. But a contemporary edge keeps the song, and the band itself, from devolving into an exercise in nostalgia.
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