The Growlers Announce the Release of New Album “Natural Affair”

The Growlers, are a California based “desert rock” band who have made waves in the alternative music scene with their surfy and transcendental sound. Their discography consists of seven full-length albums (not including upcoming “Natural Affair”); Chinese Fountain, Hung at Heart, Are You In or Out?, Hot Tropics, Gilded Pleasures, City Club, and their most recent album released in 2018, Casual Acquaintances. The band is known for their distinctive style which acts as the foundation of all of their records, although they do each have their own unique flavor. The band’s trademark style extends not only to music and writing but visual art as well, and their songs’ accompanying music videos have begun to muster up an unmistakable reputation of their own.

The Growlers do have a bit of a cult following, easily detected through all of the sold out tickets for their music festival “Beach Goth”, which is named after the term thrown around to encapsulate their otherwise indefinable style of music. A lawsuit was filed in 2016 against the band by The Observatory, a venue in Santa Ana, CA where Beach Goth had previously taken place, because the venue claimed that they own the rights to the name. Due to the lawsuit the band wasn’t sure if there would be a Beach Goth 2017 (spoiler alert, the band threw the fest anyway and just called it “The Growlers Six”). “Beach Goth Records” is now what the band uses when they release music themselves, although it’s not been formally stated whether or not the band won the legal battle. The festival always takes place somewhere in Southern California (Beach Goth 2019 is October 31st- November 1st at the Hollywood Palladium) and features an array of artists from diverse genres. Previous lineups have included artists like TSOL, Reel Big Fish, Leftover Crack, The Drums, Modest Mouse, and Patti Smith.

The band has faced criticism in the past for their last couple of albums, as some said the records sounded “too polished” and claimed that the band had lost their characteristic DIY sound that drew so many people into them in the first place. The album that took the most heat was City Club (2016), as the beachy and soulful band took more to synths and simple, radio-friendly melodies and concepts in that album and left behind some of their signature distortion. Other albums like Hot Tropics and Hung At Heart are said to be the ones that really capture the edge that got them where they are now. The band has released the album’s title track along with three other songs from the record. It’ll be interesting to see what this album brings to the table and whether or not the band’s decided to go back to their roots or continue their evolution into something else.