PeeP on PoP- Motel Beds

Motel Beds- Sunfried Dreams (Self released- 2011)
~by Gabe McBride

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It surprised me not at all to learn that the Motel Beds are from Dayton, Ohio, home of the inimitable Guided by Voices, given the band’s Brit Invasion styled pop chops. While the band’s name and the album’s cover hint at a smoky late 50’s/early 60’s vibe, Sunfried Dreams generally steers clear of the lethargic reverb-drenched sound dominating indie-dom lately, for an in-your-face urgency, somewhere between the mod of the Kinks and the nihilism of the Stones.

Sunfried Dreams  is unabashed in its sense of machismo and swagger, in an unironic way ( a Dayton attribute, I think) which also brings to mind, at times, more recent Brit imports, especially Oasis, if not so much in sound, although that’s there too, but in ‘tude. The band’s music would fit nicely as the soundtrack to a drunken bar fight, and that seems like a good thing to me. A straight-up rock ‘n’ roll fantasy we could use more of these days.

For Fans of: Apples in Stereo, The Zombies