Fang Island: A Mope-Free Zone

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Fang Island's "Daisy" unfolds as a sunny summer jam in which emotion gives way to perpetual motion.

Courtesy of the artist

Fang Island's "Daisy" unfolds as a sunny summer jam in which emotion gives way to perpetual motion.

Courtesy of the artist

It takes maybe two seconds for Fang Island's "Daisy" to announce itself as a mope-free zone — a sunny summer jam in which emotion gives way to perpetual motion. Opening with a rich chorus of "oohs," the song announces its intentions right away: to live up to the band's stated wish to sound like "everyone high-fiving everyone."

Like the product of a perfect world in which lots of bands are influenced by Andrew W.K., "Daisy" shares that rocker/icon's love of big guitars, big hooks, big momentum and big expressions of joy. The song just gets more swollen as it goes along, mostly inscrutable but unmistakably cheerful, until it eases into a majestic and lovely coda. Fang Island doesn't have much to say lyrically — at least not in the words that can be deciphered — but it's hard not to hear "Daisy" as a giddy affirmation of W.K.'s belief that life is a party worth crashing.