Need an escape from the hustle and bustle of everyday life? Slip into your swimsuit, slap on your suntan lotion and put on your sunglasses. Fix yourself a tall glass of lemonade, lay back and toss Beulah’s newest, “The Coast Is Never Clear,” into your stereo.

With Beach Boys-esque charm, these indie darlings are back with their fourth effort that features the head-bobbing, contagious lo-fi tunes fans of the Elephant 6 collective have come to expect.

Beulah’s pop perfection is dynamic enough to transport your mind for 41 minutes to a sunny day on the beach, sipping on exotic mixed drinks and wasting the day away.

The product is the result of an unconventional recording method. Miles Kurosky generated demos of his songs while he was living in Japan for two months. He then proceeded to send the tapes to each of the five bandmates, who took the song and developed it as they interpreted the tune independent of the rest of the band. Kurosky then kept what he liked, discarded what he didn’t and refined the record into a patchwork of delectable melodies that perpetually replay in your head.

Beulah’s sound is somewhere in the nooks and crannies between The Beach Boys and Velvet Underground. They have successfully taken an old musical style and experimented enough to make it their own.

“The Coast Is Never Clear” features all the typical instruments in addition to more exotic ones such as trumpets, tubular bells and a harp. This brilliantly crafted sound creates a perfect soundtrack to the heartfelt lyrics that Kurosky and Bill Swan intone intelligently within the context of their songs.

“The Coast Is Never Clear” is laced with infectious happiness. The song topics are irrelevant. Each track is smile-inducing, formulating an altogether feel-good record.

This is the kind of record you can’t wait to share with your friends. The songs are so widely appealing it is hard to believe anyone couldn’t appreciate what Beulah has done with “The Coast Is Never Clear.”

– Erin Randolph

At first glance, System of a Down is just another Southern California metal band that falls into a constantly growing category of one-hit (or less) wonders. But look again.

System of a Down is refreshing to a music industry with crisp beats, undeniably catchy music and the amazingly strong vocals of frontman Serj Tankian.

From the moment System’s sophomore album “Toxicity” begins, the band pounds out an array of original and creative songs that don’t stop.

Stocked with political and world issues, System’s songs are short and anything but sweet. Tankian’s vocal ability to emotionally combine singing, rapping, talking, whispering and screaming set him in a category with vocalists such as Deftones’ Chino Moreno and Tool’s Maynard James Keenan.

“Prison Song” finds Tankian pissed off about overcrowded prisons as he sings, “Minor drug offenders fill your prisons/ you don’t even flinch/ all our taxes paying for your wars/ against the new-rich.”

System’s song structure of fast, then slow, then fast again, takes some getting used to but fits well in songs such as “Chop Suey!,” the band’s first single.

With the direction rock music is heading, “Toxicity” could very well be a breakthrough album.

– Kyle Moss