Charming their way onto the roster of legendary punk imprint Epitaph Records, freewheeling San Francisco quintet
Culture Abuse cloak some keen songwriting under a facade of big dumb summer fun on their strong sophomore outing,
Bay Dream. With their fusion of slacker rock, garage punk, and fuzzy grunge, they somehow turn goofball exercises like "Bee Kind to the Bugs," "S'Why," and "Dave's Not Here (I Got the Stuff Man)" into surprisingly enjoyable nuggets of West Coast pop that, at times, echo the simplistic appeal of
the Ramones and the hooky melodicism of fellow Californians like
Rooney or
Weezer. Working with producer
Carlos de la Garza (
Paramore,
Jimmy Eat World,
M83), they've tightened up their sound and mellowed some of the more hardcore elements that were prevalent on their 2016 debut,
Peach. In the vision of frontman and chief songwriter
David Kelling, they have a charismatic voice to tell their tales of feeling good, feeling bad, moving on, and smoking weed. More often than not,
Kelling's songs have an odd tenderness, with many of them inspired by his move to Los Angeles, making
Bay Dream feel like a kind of love letter to his native Northern California home. At first glance, it's easy to underestimate
Culture Abuse for the part-time slackers they present themselves to be, but there's a lot more to them than meets the eye on this satisfying second effort.