Dirty Beaches

Dirty Beaches’ debut, Badlands, has drawn comparisons to everything from Elvis Presley to Suicide, an unlikely range of influences that Beaches’ main man Alex Hungtai acknowledges as helping shape his sound, which he himself describes as soundtracks to imaginary films. The name is right on the nose: There are obvious roots in down-tempo surf rock, but the dirtiness—fuzzy vocals and distortion pedals—of the genre is exaggerated almost to the point of drag. 

Updated 05/09/2012