Surfing

What's more surprising is just how good it all is, the tunes great, the mood fun, the album infectious. [Mar 2009, p.92]

The name accounts for the collaboration between Banhart and Priestbird's Greg Rogove, both of whom sing and bang out a nimble mix of time-tucked rock on a debut album with lots of strange, surprising rewards.

Surfing definitely won't end up on many end-of-year lists, but it's easygoing where "Smokey Rolls Down Thunder Canyon" was often self-serious, and overall a pleasant diversion for Banhart fans.

The music is hot, but the goofiness grates.

Surfing troublingly ends with three plodding failures (including the seven-minute "Sayulita") that feel at odds with the record's fuck-all spirit.

Like much of the jokey stuff on Surfing, these songs are far more annoying than they are clever. And they don’t even begin to approach being funny.

Despite Rogove’s contribution and support from the likes of the Strokes’ Fabrizio Moretti among others, Surfing illuminates the problems that have dogged Banhart since the jump: He can make really great pieces of ‘60s folk and pop homage, but has terrible self-editing skills and has trouble avoiding lameness, sad attempts at humor and bad taste.

Surfing does not serve a discussion of any of these things; it is, considering all ephemeral connotations, a side project. And an obnoxious one at that.