Full Ugly: Spent the Afternoon

Full Ugly’s debut, Spent the Afternoon, is full of mundane, lethargic lyrical documentation of everyday life delivered in a manner reminiscent of impossibly hot summer days filled with a heat so stifling and so all consuming that any sort of movement beyond the most minimalistic seems completely out of the question. Lead vocalist and principle songwriter Nathan Burgess employs a note-perfect slacker malaise lyrical persona that, by album’s end, leaves the listener feeling slightly exhausted, as though they had just sat and watched someone yawn for a full 30 minutes.

Fortunately the music itself is very pleasant in a jangly, late afternoon, somnambulistic way that often recalls some of the better moments of the first Girls album or any number of the recent beach-themed albums released in the wake of Best Coast’s breakout success. While no single song sticks out (with the possible exception of the epically elegiac “Mount Barker”, acting as Spent the Afternoon’s “Hellhole Ratrace”), the 10 tracks here serve as a perfect soundtrack to your own (lazy) adventure-themed summer afternoon.