NJ’s Cabana Wear warms up for a solitary summer with new Cape Weather EP, breaks down the project in bonus track commentary

South Jersey power pop / modern rock four-piece Cabana Wear released a short new collection of their hooky summertime jams last week, a perfect bunch of sunny energy for a season that is likely going to be more solitary than ever for most of us.

The Cape Weather EP clocks in at about seven minutes long with three short, hooky tunes of melodic Fountains of Wayne leads and Weezer crunch, with dreamy vocal harmonies and somewhat existential lyrics like “we’re so little in this world.”

That line comes from the opening “Out For A Walk,” which boasts a particularly Nada Surf style jangle on its guitar line. It comes as no surprise, then, to hear that guitarist Alec McVey wrote his part for the song after seeing Nada Surf in concert at World Cafe Live last year. That tidbit comes out in a new audio commentary bonus podcast to the EP, which breaks down “Out For A Walk” and the stories behind it, Song Exploder-style.

Recorded in Atlantic City before a Descendants show, the podcast finds singer and co-songwriter Brian Mietz describing it as “a song about standing 20 stories in the air and going for a walk” as he and McVey take listeners on the journey of the song, beginning with voice memos of guitar chord progressions sent after that Nada Surf, to the thematic inspo gathered at the Atlantic City Beer and Music Festival. Meitz shares details of the journal made out of the children’s book Alfred’s Alphabet Walk he used to write the lyrics and how it had an inadvertant influence on the process. McVey reflects on the layers of instrumentation and sound that his bandmates brought to the production. In total, it’s an 18-minute breakdown of a two-and-a-half minute song, which is a remarkable level of detail but also a lot of fun to listen to.

Check it out below.