Sex Church is a ridiculous name for a band. Growing Over is ridiculous too, but in the way that a surreal psychedelic drug trip on familiar beaches might be. Each track, wallowing in lo-fi reverb, comes off like a disillusioned smirk, depressed and harsh and dissonant.

This is definitely a garage record, and it’s almost impossible to make out any coherent lyrics underneath guitar tracks thick with sloshing echo and violent tremolo bends—not that it’s necessary to hear the words clearly to understand their gist. The vocal breakup on “Waking Up” paints a picture of a grimy youth kicking dust against the wall, waiting for the firing squad to show up.

As a package, Growing Over suffers from the inclusion of the instrumental tracks “Put Away,” “Always Home” and “Colour Out Of Space.” The former two bookend the album in boring, washy fade-outs, while the latter is a throwaway noise recording of heavy echoes and brass instruments that doesn’t really endear itself to the black humour that makes the rest of the album so enjoyable.

Dilapidated and miserable, Sex Church run wild with surf beats, Brit-punk clamour and Velvet Underground dissonance to create something every bit as ridiculous as their nom de plume, but in a bummed-out and bleak way. Like the beach on a stoned, rainy winter day, everything is a little sludgy and muddled, but sometimes that’s a great thing.