FIDLAR, Sugar Pit [outside]

FIDLAR’s timing is either dead-on or off by a week. Hawaiian punk Zac Carper’s SoCal skate squad once bro’d up hard here in A-Town, raging ACL Fest stages like they owned the place. Their raw 2013 debut matched beach hooks to beat vulnerability such that critical consensus never swung back in their favor. Until last month! Surviving the Dream bottles the same slacker charge, easily the band’s best since its debut. And in a ditty like “Break Your Heart” Carper reveals maturity enough to have penned an alternative wedding song for the ages. Perhaps FIDLAR outgrew local festivals, then. Sugar Pit opens. – Raoul Hernandez