Bones Garage recently released their newest album, Massacre/Dance. In general, I found the tunes to be enjoyable, but there was a redundancy to the sound that got old quickly.
Bones Garage Combines Surf and Punk
Self-described as Indie Surf Punk Rock, Bones Garage is comprised of Ariel Pedatzur on vocals, Eden Atad and Yaniv Bin on guitar, Dor Harari on drums, and Yoni Deutsch on bass. (Atad and Harari also provide background vocals.) The four young men and one woman disguise the size of their band in the music. You’re not sure who you’re listening to aside from Pedatzur.
Many of the songs on this album start out very similarly to one another. Bones Garage kick off the album with “A.D.D.,” a nice, cheery melody. It’s an interesting tune and clever in nomenclature because the beat you get used to turns into a sped-up version of itself.
It’s an unexpected transition that makes you wonder if your focus was off, or if it’s just the band playing tricks on you by changing tempo. I found this song was especially relaxing because it was exclusively instrumental.
Bones Garage, while highly skilled in many aspects of their music, can certainly develop their lyrical skills. Some of the songs are complex (“New Religion,” “On the Galaxy,” “Equals”), but in others only the sounds of the instruments made listening a gratifying experience.
In “Seasons Break,” “The Run,” and “Losing Myself,” Bones Garage fall into a nasty pattern of utilizing the same string of words to get from one part of the song to the next. While the music alone would be beautiful, the repetition of the vocals took away from my enjoyment.
I would recommend listening to the entire album, at least so that you understand how to rank each song compared to the others. I especially suggest the songs I mentioned earlier, which show off the lyrical dexterity of the band members.
“New Religion” reminds me of Beach House, whom I’ve always considered a relaxing band to listen to. “Equals” is all-around a beautiful piece. It’s appropriate that it concludes the album because it shows the culmination of Bones Garages’ work.
Massacre/Dance is Bones Garage’s debut album — there’s room for improvement, but overall they’re not off to a bad start.
