Beach Bunny Credit: John Tuanqui

If you spent any time at Chicago indie shows last year, chances are you became familiar with the band Beach Bunny, even if you never actually saw them. The group’s name appeared on so many of the gig posters and concert calendars plastered on the walls of local clubs that you could easily imagine they had weekly residencies at half of them. On top of that, they played a set at Riot Fest, and they were selected as one of the openers for a string of Alkaline Trio hometown shows at the Metro during first week of January. I can see why established punk voices have been keen to get behind the band; Beach Bunny’s clean, energetic power pop gets right to the point. Chicago native Lili Trifilio started the project as a solo endeavor with 2015’s Animalism, an EP she wrote following a breakup and dropped in the winter of her freshman year at DePaul. In 2017 she roped in a trio of musicians to help flesh out her material, and by the time they self-released their Prom Queen EP last August, they’d developed a sleek, precise, and concise surf-inflected sound. Beach Bunny play their sweet hooks with an unhurried thoughtfulness, so that even when Trifilio sings about the uncertainty of the future on the anxious “Adulting,” her earnest confidence suggests that at least the future of her band is secure. Good omens continue to greet Beach Bunny: last month, rising California emo label Open Door announced preorders for Beach Bunny’s first vinyl release, a 12-inch compilation that includes Prom Queen, early-2018 single “Sports,” and the 2017 EP Crybaby.   v

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