This is my first time listening to Ocean Beach and I love them! What a party in my lugholes!

Recorded and produced by high profile twiddling desk maestro Dale Cotton, Boys Club is the lead single from the band’s forthcoming album The Long Road Home, due at the end of the year. If this track is the barometer we’re in for an absolute smile fest. What a groove!

Okay, into the deets. Auckland based but Southland raised Gary Dalhousie is the band member and songwriter behind this gem. We’ve got what I can only describe for term of reference as what Talking Heads, Peter Gabriel, The B52s and Th’ Dudes would sound like if they popped up in a single studio in 2024 and told to make a song. We’ve got a great jam going on at the bottom end, with a hot temperature bass line hooked into a subtle but insistent drum beat. This sets the pace and the vibe of the song, and it got me nodding in time and realising I was developing a smile that was widening every second bar.

Some fabbo distorted guitars sit slightly higher in the great mix than an equally prevalent, almost Stevie Wonder a la Superstitious-era keys/synth riff. Lovely extrapolated lead guitar solos pop up and break the almost hypnotic hold the rhythm section gets on you, and you feel like you’ve experienced what psychedelic pop in 2024 really sounds like when delivered Pasifika style.

Vocally we’ve got a full tenor, nothing reedy or warbly going on. Crystal and from the bootstraps, and bringing us an anthemic chorus we’re all going to be humming for months. Trust me on that. As for the meaning behind the song, from the EPK we read: This song is dedicated to the many privileged lads that party their way through life as part of the patriarchy, and who seek to protect their position at the head of the (private school boy) class by keeping that glass ceiling nice and low.

As a lad from the industrial South coast of Wales, I come from the working class roots that Gary obviously does as well. The news we have for those toffs is that you’re just wasting talent that could make it better for everyone when you hold back so many. Anyway…

Despite the socio-political message, this is a fantastic song to listen to. It has a tangible flexibility that sits it in pop world yet rock world too – with a very clear impression left with me that it could be successfully delivered very heavily indeed on the live stage. It’s on Spotify now, so go have a listen! I hope to hear it on radio around the traps soon too, which I’m sure I will as i know the band is in good hands.

Ocean Beach, Boys Club. I’m sold.