Dork
  • Music News
    • Latest News
    • Album Release Schedule
  • Features
    • Features & Interviews
    • Artist Guides
    • In Photos
  • New Music
    • Hype
    • Hype News
    • Hype Features & Interviews
    • Hype Reviews
  • Playlists
    • Playlists
    • Dork Playlist
    • The Cut
    • Hype
      • Cover Story
      • Hype Playlist
  • Reviews
    • Album & EP Reviews
    • Live Reviews
  • Radio
    • Home
    • Shows
      • Down With Boring
    • Playlist
    • Listen Again
    • Podcast
      • Apple Podcasts
      • Spotify
      • Google Podcasts
      • Stitcher
      • aCast
      • TuneIn
  • Magazine
    • Latest Issue
    • Back Issues
    • Print Subscriptions
    • Print + Digital Subscriptions
  • Shop
  • Supporters
    • Support Dork
    • Supporter Only Content
    • Digital Library
HTML5 RADIO PLAYER PLUGIN WITH REAL VISUALIZER powered by Sodah Webdesign Dexheim
Dork
  • Music News
    • Latest News
    • Album Release Schedule
  • Features
    • Features & Interviews
    • Artist Guides
    • In Photos
  • New Music
    • Hype
    • Hype News
    • Hype Features & Interviews
    • Hype Reviews
  • Playlists
    • Playlists
    • Dork Playlist
    • The Cut
    • Hype
      • Cover Story
      • Hype Playlist
  • Reviews
    • Album & EP Reviews
    • Live Reviews
  • Radio
    • Home
    • Shows
      • Down With Boring
    • Playlist
    • Listen Again
    • Podcast
      • Apple Podcasts
      • Spotify
      • Google Podcasts
      • Stitcher
      • aCast
      • TuneIn
  • Magazine
    • Latest Issue
    • Back Issues
    • Print Subscriptions
    • Print + Digital Subscriptions
  • Shop
  • Supporters
    • Support Dork
    • Supporter Only Content
    • Digital Library
  • Album & EP Reviews

Easy Life – life’s a beach

  • Stephen Ackroyd
  • May 27, 2021

Label: Island Records
Released: 28th May 2021


When we first put Easy Life on the cover of Dork, back in March of 2020, they looked set up for a barnstorming year. There were big live dates on the books. There was an expectation of a much-anticipated debut album. There was even a good chance of those awards, plaudits and end of year list mentions aplenty that might follow. And then the world stopped.

Momentum wound down; it’d be easy to suggest that the Midlands massive might have missed their moment. But they haven’t. Easy Life have always seemed like a band operating on their own effortless steam. While urgency may have been forced upon them by the gears and cogs of an industry around them, musically they’ve remained the calm at the eye of the storm, laid back with an umbrella-adorned cocktail in hand. After a year of frantic panic, worry and claustrophobic stress, ‘life’s a beach’ isn’t an opportunity passed. 

Rarely moving out of a horizontal state, it’s an album for hazy sun and lazy, wavy days. Opener ‘a message to myself’ might have seemed an odd choice for a lead track, but in context, it’s an effective curtain-raiser on a record that finds fertile ground in the everyday. A raw and honest call for self-care; it’s followed by the anxious megabop ‘skeletons’, kitchen-sink love story ‘daydreams’ and uplifting, posi-vibes-anthem ‘have a great day’. It’s closer ‘music to walk home to’ that really mixes up the formula, though. A Mike Skinner-esque stream of consciousness, it’s all snatched conversations, casual musings and flashes of thoughts. Unlike anything we’ve heard from the band before, it’s the sharpest distillation of the everyday existence that drives Easy Life yet. 

Delving into the full emotional spectrum, ‘life’s a beach’ is an album that might sound dreamy, but underneath the surface those waters run deep. A moment of escape from muddled, muddling lives, it’s the perfect balm to soothe us out the other side, back into the mundanity of modern life.

Stephen Ackroyd
4.0 rating
4/5
Total Score
Related Topics
  • Easy Life
  • Hype
You May Also Like
View Post
  • Features

Black Honey: “When you’re scared, that’s when you know that you’re saying something important”

  • March 16, 2023
View Post
  • Features

NOAHFINNCE: “You shouldn’t have to compromise who you are to make other people happy”

  • March 17, 2023
View Post
  • Features

Venbee: “It’s okay if things aren’t working out; that’s a message I’m stuck on sharing”

  • March 17, 2023
Latest issue
Latest
    • Music News
    Ben Howard has announced a huge 2023 UK and European tour
    • Music News
    The National are set to drop a new track, ‘Eucalyptus’, this week
    • Music News
    Léa Sen has shared a new track, ‘Luv Him (About U)’
    • Music News
    Georgia looks to be coming back with something new “soon”
    • Music News
    The Japanese House returns with new single, ‘Boyhood’

Subscribe to our newsletter

Get pop nonsense to your inbox.

Dork
  • Contact
  • Jobs
  • Privacy
© 2016-2021 The Bunker Publishing Ltd

Input your search keywords and press Enter.