Artist: Beautiful Girls
Album Title: We're Already Gone
Label: San Dumo Records
Bones:
Summary: How To Jump A Sinking Vessel
Reviewed By: 'Disco' Stu McPhee

The ravaging waves of the Pacific Ocean repeatedly pound the once sturdy vessel known as the S.S. Acoustic Roots Music. It has been a courageous journey thus far for the passengers and crew, but like Roy Jones Jr in the Heavyweight division, sometimes it becomes clear that unless you bulk up a bit you will be left on the canvas or in this case the murky depths of the ocean floor.

Sydney's The Beautiful Girls have obviously sensed this impending danger and have wisely sought a stronger craft to continue their musical voyage. But let's be frank here: We're Already Gone (the title works nicely with my rambling above), their second full-length album, is not a great leap in their abilities, they've just decided to make the album they have always had in them. 2003's Learn Yourself, while nice and laidback, really wasn't representative of the live sound of the Girls. The album was too much Jack Johnson and not enough Sublime if you will.

The addition of Brazilian muso Felipe Kmiecik has been a real boon to the band as they tackle a much fuller sound on album two. Fusing reggae/dub grooves with a raw electric blues sound that stems from some of the band members former musical collectives, We're Already Gone will surprise punters that wrote them off as music for surfer girls to go ga-ga over.

First single 'Ashes' is the prime model for the rest of the album. It's the West meets the West Indies with a built in fan sing along when tour time comes along. This framework continues on the bulk of the album, most notably on 'The Biggest Lie I Ever Told', 'The Wrong Side Of Town' and the title track. Fans of the first album will get into the mellow sounds of 'Let's Take The Long Way Home' and 'When I Had You With Me' while those who have ever wondered what Rage Against The Machine/Audioslave would sound like as a surf rock band can look no further than the stand out 'Skipping Cracks'.

The only time the quartet push their luck is on 'Girl, Lately Things Have Been Changing' where they go for a bit of Black Keys riffery but come up a tad short. The finished product just sounds messy and out of place with the rest of the album. Points for trying though.

The great thing about 'We're Already Gone' is that you will discover something new with it every time you put it on the platter (or in the CD tray as the case may be). Which is good because by the time summer comes around it will be blasting out of car stereos up and down the coast. You might as well get used to it.