Since the band’s 2017 origin, Fuzzysurf has become known for its tremendous, next-level music videos that are routinely paired with upbeat, indie-tinged surf rock compositions. It’s been a pattern you could rely upon—a great new release, an amazing new music video that somehow manages to outdo the one before it, repeat—year in and year out. There are far worse habits for a band to have, but it was still a cycle nonetheless.
This winter, mere months after putting out its best music video yet, the Milwaukee outfit decided to buck the trend (albeit an enjoyable trend) it had set for much of the band’s eight-year existence in a big way. On January 31, Fuzzysurf sidestepped expectations with the release of Chameleons. The long-awaited follow-up to 2020’s super poppy Sweet Tooth is a 20-track, genre-jumping double LP that comes after the band quietly took a two-year hiatus.
Album opener “Doghouse” lulls listeners in with hints of Fuzzysurf’s trademark synth-y and smooth indie rock constructs on display. The song leads directly into the decidedly on-brand standout single “Don’t Go Overboard” before veering into an uncharacteristically darkened corridor in the form of “Pollinate My Mind.” Then all bets are off.
True to the album’s name, Chameleons takes many different forms over the course of its 67-minute runtime. “Weighed Down” is a downtrodden-yet-beautiful ballad that takes its time to unfurl and shows no interest in exiting the emotive march in order to build to any sort of crescendo. Even the music video is simple and straightforward! Sure, some movements venture back toward familiar territory in the early-going (namely the ultra catchy “I Don’t Wanna Be Nothing Anymore” and “Without You”), but things open up considerably at the album’s halfway point.
The band spent a total of 18 days at Howl Street Recordings making the 20-song effort, and that time and attention to detail are both very apparent in much of Chameleons. Beyond the holy rock and roll trinity of guitar, bass, and drums employed throughout the release, Fuzzysurf members also flexed new instrumental muscles by adding keys, accordion, mandolin, banjo, lap steel, bells, trumpet, timpani, and harmonica over the course of the record.
The band also sought accompaniment from outsiders like Allen Russell (on violin), Molly Lieberman (viola), Patrick Reinholz (cello), and Megan Filo (steel pan). An accomplished trio of drummers—Devin Drobka, Matt Liban, and Howl Street owner Shane Hochstetler—also drop in to provide percussion on a total of nine songs. Sometimes the contributions help add flourishes to already sturdy song framework. In other instances, such external touches carry the material to higher ground, as shown on indie-classical hybrid “Memory” and outstanding late-album highlight “Hey Hey Hey My My My.”
Though Fuzzysurf—both visually and aurally—have been a fun and altogether quality contributor to Milwaukee’s music scene throughout its lengthy and accomplished tenure, Chameleons shows what the band is truly capable of in terms of its versatility, its perspective, and its inability to blend in with its local music contemporaries. Listen to the album now (and pick up one of the 100 copies of the double LP that are in existence while you can).