You could explain a lot about 800Beloved's music with frontman Sean Lynch's drink of choice — Tim Horton's coffee, one cream, eight sugars. His just-released Bouquet album is a pop shoegaze blast fueled by manically propulsive drums. It is, in fact, one of the best Detroit records so far this year. Lynch's 800Beloved is both a youth-culture-obsessed wall-of-guitar dance party and soundtrack to the crumbling world around us. His guitar runs the gamut of abrasive sonic assault (like Medicine) from the simple lines of the Cure to the hovering, shimmering chords of the Cocteau Twins. Imagine that with New Order's rhythm section backing up the Psychedelic Furs' Richard Butler on the set of Gossip Girl and you've got an idea about 800Beloved.
By day, Sean works as an assistant and cosmetologist at his pop's funeral home — his father is poet and essayist Thomas Lynch. Sean went to work for his dad after a year at the College for Creative Studies studying painting. Said studies came in handy at work: "I find that what I learned in my 2D and 3D classes at CCS is more valuable than what you learn in mortuary sciences."
His work is a short walk from his downtown Milford apartment, where, incidentally, much of the album was recorded. The large front room of his brick-walled, high-ceilinged loft is almost as old as Milford itself. The space — which serves as his studio, practice area, living room, kitchen and bedroom — overlooks Main Street. Lynch: "I like that I can see the homecoming parade from my window; it keeps me grounded."
800Beloved's album Bouquet is available on Moodgadget Records at iTunes and Amazon. Hear music at myspace.com/800beloved. See the band on Saturday, March 14, with the Chap at Trowbridge House of Coffee, 10241 Joseph Campau, Hamtramck.
