Hope Downs

Certainly few, if any, bands of the era made an album as consistently great as Hope Downs. Not many in Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever's era have, either. It's a small-scale triumph of hooks and guitars from a band whose members have figured it all out and delivered a debut album that comes as close to perfect as any guitar pop album can.

Even with the songwriting differences, Hope Downs sounds like a unified partnership between five musicians who've known each other for most of their lives.

It's entirely addictive--one fix and you're hooked. [Jul 2018, p.36]

Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever have more tricks up their sleeves, it seems. For a debut, though, a couple tricks are enough, especially when you’ve already mastered them.

Sophisticated and subversive in equal measure, their staccato sing-alongs come on pristine and precise, then unspool in surprising directions as decorum gives way to abandon.

It’s the sound of musicians that know exactly what they want to be.

Even at their most fervent, the characters of Hope Downs remain soaked in sun, able to convince themselves that one great night could be enough to set them straight again. At about 35 minutes, Hope Downs is a brief vacation, and so are many of its songs.

Every amp tone on this album is just sweet enough, every jangling rhythm hits exactly where it should. Rolling Blackouts are playing an old game, but they're damned good at it.

Hope Downs is as good a reminder as any that life’s a blast. Head to the beach, you’ve found the soundtrack.

Ultimately, the record triumphs via Rolling Blackouts; deep inhabitation of their music, ans the space of its creation. [Jul 2018, p.92]

Hope Downs shows how jangling indie should be done. [Summer 2018, p.114]

With Hope Downs, Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever have adroitly taken their trademark sound and expanded it into a thoroughly enjoyable album--and they’ve done it in rapid time.

At 10 tracks and 36 minutes, Hope Downs isn't a great deal longer than either of Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever's previous two EPs and perhaps the only disappointment here is that their sound doesn't feel particularly expanded upon in the long-player format.

RBCF are a welcome addition to the range of Australian guitar bands taking the world by storm, their confident debut an exploration of angular v. melodic guitars and energetic rhythms.

It’s a road record to soundtrack a hazy journey across the outback in search of a lost love, contemplating the world whilst swigging on a beer. Hope Downs is far from perfect, but it has charm in abundance.

Not everything on Hope Downs impresses, as tracks such as "Sister’s Jeans’’ and "The Hammer’’ fail to recount the warmth and vivid storytelling found on the rest of the album. Regardless, Hope Downs is a record that sounds like it was made in the Australian bush, and it’s when this sense of local experience is presented most effectively that it really starts to shine.

If there’s anything to criticise Hope Downs for, it’s its risk-averse approach, and tendency to become a one-dimensional listen, but as a debut record, it presents a band that know exactly what they’re doing, and proceed to do it very well indeed.