Summer Camp

With their eponymous release, Summer Camp have managed to avoid the common difficulties of the second album by creating a more authentic and genuine album of work compared with their debut, Welcome To Condale, which was completely fictional.

In Summer Camp, the UK duo Elizabeth Sankey and Jeremy Warmsley have taken a more personal approach with themes surrounding coming of age, all told in the first person – much more relatable and meaningful.

With an abundance of confessional lyrics and openly divulging personal emotions and experiences (Like second track, ‘Fresh’, with the lyrics ‘First love is the best love…do you remember the first time?) to their audience, Summer Camp have managed to hold onto their most distinguishing features; retro musical references, sweet melodies and infectious beats. A record full of heavily sampled loops and complex layered rhythms, it doesn’t distract from Sankey’s warm tones and soaring lines.

Opener, The End, is a whirling flurry of synth scales and bass-focused beats, demonstrating the couple’s natural chemistry with vocals sang in unison, as well as effortless counter-melodies. Instant summer anthem (although a little late), Fresh, is a laid back tune with funky bass lines and insightful lyrics about falling in love for the first time.

Tracks, Crazy and Two Chords feature a rockier accompaniment with the added depth of live-recorded drums in Two Chords, whilst in contrast, Keep Falling has a crisp and clean sound with soulful melody lines and an Alphabeat-style Pop attributes. I Got You is a sort of personal vow from the couple to each other about their relationship with the lyrics,  ‘When it gets too hard, we’ll fake it, whatever’s in our way, we’ll break it, everything we need, we’ll take it for always, forever, you and me‘.

Everything Has Changed features a great distorted guitar riff throughout bringing a real 90’s Indie feel to it, especially in the chorus. Definitely a standout track on the record. Moving swiftly into second place for album highlight is track Pink Summer. This is a purely feel-good track with beautifully layered vocals in the chorus singing ‘It’s not how much you love, it’s how much you are loved‘, signifying the duo’s optimistic outlook on life.

Summer Camp’s second album was part recorded in The Pool and produced and mixed at Miloco’s The Bunker by renowned Indie producer, Stephen Street (Blur, Babyshambles).

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