Album Review: High Tides – Paradise Daze

High Tides
Paradise Daze
Rad Cult
★★★★★

Warren Kroll and Steven Lutes return to bring us the warm utopia of Paradise Daze. The duo have loaded up on Vitamin D as they drift with a translucent electronic Shangri-La. It’s like dropping acid inside a shell shop on the coast while binge watching vintage episodes of MTV’s Spring Break. Not that I would know anything about that, but their colorful musical demeanor transcends into a strange eclectic enlightenment.

High Tide’s electronic aesthetics have no destination, just aural scenery. “Summer Reflections” burns of coconut lotion and sunlit synths over drugged-out funk rhythms that borderline on Indian percussive meditation. You can either get down by the pool or chill out within your own confines.

High Tides – Summer Reflections

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Pa0OZTcZEU

Beyond the Beach House vibes of “Summer Reflections,” their vaporized synth work is sly and captivating.“Silver Strand Lulls” bends reality with futuristic results as breezy effects lull you inside the machine on “Catch the Wav.” It’s Chillwave on codeine. Yet, as natural as future musical tech, the New (New) Age lies in “Tidal Movements.” We dream of electric seagulls, lost in the hums of melodic ecstasy. High Tides turn down the disco to build a new habitat of a subconscious underworld blinded by sun rays and dayglo mercury-splattered soundscapes. Wrapping up the release, they utilize the title track as an end credit push into the unknown. By now our minds are fogged-up with dreamlike visions of light reflecting water works and abstract hues of coastal pastels. This song takes us the rest of the way into a floating abyss that is serene electronic bliss. I cannot think of a better feeling than this.

It took four years to conclude with this kind of perfection. Not one song will go unnoticed. Sometimes futuristic creepy, sometimes facetious in tone, but always an endless summer in VHS quality, High Tides have created a wonderment not of this planet, or any other for the matter.