Album Review: Honeymoon by Beach Bunny

Beach Bunny bounce back with fine-tuned SoCal vibes on sun-blessed debut 'Honeymoon' following a string of spiky lo-fi EP releases. Since their formation in 2015, the four-piece have teasingly released snippets of an evolving sound spanning acoustic-based bedroom pop to distortion-doused tracks. Last year's 'Prom Queen' saw the band taking on an increasingly Best Coast-esque energy - high octane indie cutting through rapid-fire three-minute numbers.

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Beach Bunny's Lili Trifilio wasn't familiar with TikTok until after her song went viral on the video-sharing app last summer. The self-released "Prom Queen," a protest of Euro-centric beauty standards, has soundtracked hundreds of thousands of TikToks, many of which feature a girl posing in front of a phone camera to illustrate Trifilio's opening lines: "Shut up, count your calories/I never looked good in mom jeans." Those lyrics distill the Beach Bunny formula: sentimental and wistful, with a plainspokenness that prompts immediate sympathy. TikTok is better known for surfacing meme-ready rap bangers than indie rock, but Trifilio's heavyhearted charm struck a nerve.

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Originally the solo bedroom pop endeavor of Chicagoan Lili Trifilio, Beach Bunny found its legs in 2018 as fully formed fuzz-pop quartet, landing a streaming hit with the dark-witted body image paean "Prom Queen. " More so than on her earlier more-acoustic releases, Trifilio's full-band version of Beach Bunny revealed a knack for infectious pop hooks played with a collaborative energy, which helped propel her anxious observations beyond mere folk confessionalism. The success of "Prom Queen" also helped the group net a deal with New York indie Mom + Pop Records, which offers up their full-length debut, Honeymoon.

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The Lowdown: Beach Bunny have often been regarded as Liz Phair-like, quintessential "sad-girl" music, and, more recently, a Tik-Tok phenomenon. Yet, none of these comparisons really do them justice. On the Chicago-based outfit's 2018 EP, Prom Queen, lead singer and songwriter Lili Trifilio wrestles with anxieties of unfair beauty standards and the inevitability of growing up.

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W hat began in 2015 as a bedroom project for Chicago-based Lili Trifilio had become something of an online phenomenon by the time 2018's self-released Prom Queen was streamed 67m times. Now a fully fleshed-out four-piece with an actual record deal, Beach Bunny's debut full-length effort doesn't disappoint: Honeymoon is a blast of upbeat indie-pop that in February sounds as anachronous as it is welcome. Throughout, lyrical anxieties ("I'm afraid of being alone") are offset against breezily carefree hooks that waste little time getting to a bittersweet chorus, before ending just as quickly.

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