Telethon "Swim Out Past the Breakers" [Oceania Vinyl]

Swim Out Past The Breakers is the fifth full-length record from Wisconsin power-punk group Telethon, but it's also a lyric from the song "Santa Monica" by Everclear. The line smacked singer Kevin Tully one perfect summer night when the song came on while driving around in his girlfriend's car. "Swim out past the breakers, watch the world die", recites Tully. "It's nihilistic but also really blissed out imagery, and I feel like that's this record." Swim Out Past The Breakers comprises 16 tracks that ride the cracks between the violent, overwhelming intensity and self-importance of young adulthood, and aging-out into a sort of comfortable submission to our conditions. It's a monumental, maximalist work that spans punk rock, folk, bedroom pop, country, and power pop, all meandering familiar streets together, drunk on nostalgia.