The story the Beaches are asking the listener to believe is that this sunny satellite alt-rock is more than another example of reverb-as-songwriting in whatever remains of the campaign to suggest rock is not dead. That it is, in fact, a means of ironic detachment from the raw and wrenching pain at the center of the album, pain reflected in the digging through trash for cigarettes, in the willing sexual subjugation and annihilation as comfort, in reflecting past sins against others as the latest step in the cycle of interpersonal hurt directed outward. They don't tell the story well and are not believable in the telling, but that has never been a barrier for success. Every summer, people sit in chairs and lay out in the sun and read paperback novels they will never remember but nonetheless recall fondly, vaguely, imperfectly, non-specifically. It is no sin to reach for ambient wallpaper from time to time. It is a lie, at least, to seek it out and call it something else.
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