Showing posts with label fidlar. Show all posts
Showing posts with label fidlar. Show all posts
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Album Review: FIDLAR - FIDLAR



In the summer of 2011, I went to see The Black Keys play at Artpark. It was, as you can probably imagine, an amazing show. But let me back up for a minute. The reason I ended up going to the show in the first place was because I wanted to see Cage the Elephant, who was opening for them. At that point in my life, if you can believe it, I was a bigger fan of Cage the Elephant than The Black Keys. You may be able to guess what happened next, but I’ll tell you anyway: I was totally underwhelmed by Cage the Elephant and completely blown away with the sound and power The Black Keys generated with (pretty much) only two people. I was left wondering if I had seen Cage the Elephant at the height of their career. Was opening for The Black Keys in Lewiston, New York going to be one of their most memorable shows? I doubt it, but the fact that I'm even considering it is worth noting.

I’m thinking about all of this because I just listened to the self-titled debut LP by FIDLAR, a band that shares some similarities with Cage the Elephant. It’s definitely an impressive album and I will certainly keep listening to it. The unpolished, tinny-sounding, screaming-mad-lyrical attack of “Cheap Beer” hits you like a punch in the face right off the bat. Zac Carper, FIDLAR’s lead singer, is not a gentleman I would ever charge with the task of lulling a baby to sleep. These guys were put on earth to make noise. But my concern is that the ceiling is not very high for punk or punk-revival bands right now; my worry is that they are making noise that people no longer want to listen to.

If this sounds like a very “corporate” stance on things, well, I guess maybe it is. But let me explain myself. It seems like most music-consuming individuals right now are looking for either a genre-bending sound or a new sound entirely. An example of this is The Lumineers, Imagine Dragons, and fun. currently occupying the 1st, 3rd, and 4th spots on the Billboard Rock charts. I’m not going to turn this into an argument about the merits of each band, but I can say for certain that those are not Rock bands. Or are they? What exactly defines Rock right now? I feel like whoever makes those kinds of decisions had a discussion that I was not privy to, and the result is that bands like The Lumineers, who ten years ago would have existed in some state of folk-rock obscurity, are now our generations “rock stars.”

This is presumably really unfortunate for bands like FIDLAR. Although Carper declares, on the second track “Stoked and Broke,” that “I just wanna get really high/smoke weed until I die/I don’t ever wanna get a job,” I assume that most of that is hyperbole and he’d actually really like to get a job. Or at least sell enough records to do what he wants to do and nothing else. Again, I liked this album, but I don’t see it starting the kinds of revolutions this music would’ve if, say, it was released thirty-five years ago. Thirty-five years ago, if a kid was caught listening to Carper belting out, “Why did you go betray me/You’re such a whore/I stay at home drinking/you’re such a whore,” as he does on the 5th track “Whore,” the mom, dad, local priest and family cat would’ve gathered in the living room to explain just how awful the devil is. Nowadays, if a parent caught their kid listening to FIDLAR, they’ll just shrug it off, go back into the den and pop in their Lumineers CD.

 Highlights of the album for me were the above-mentioned “Cheap Beer” and “Whore,” and I loved the reverberating guitar and general anger of the final song “Cocaine,” but my favorite song on FIDLAR is “Gimmie Something.” Just take a typical Beach Boys song, add some lyrical distortion and more amplification and you’ll come away with “Gimmie Something." 

Punk music used to have an edge, but now it seems like more of a novelty than anything else. After hearing Carper belt out in the opening track, “I drink cheap beer/so what/fuck you,” what else can you think? The question then becomes: Are they aware of this? And I’d say yes, they are. FIDLAR is a 14-track album full of short songs with a West coast beach-punk vibe and they did a hell of a job picking a sound and sticking to it. I can only imagine the party that occurred on the day this album came out and all I can really say is good for them.     

Grade: B



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Listener's Digest: August 31 - September 7




The difficulty in writing about music is excellently articulated in an article, originally printed by The Believer  in 2009. "Dancing About Architecture" (full text can be found here, luckily), points out that music can be such a subjective experience, that the act of writing can, when it seeks to communicate an experience in words, often fall short. I was struck by this thought when writing about some of this week's songs, especially the track by Tops. "Easy Friends" is a fairly straight forward track and one that I liked a lot, but, again, how to explain it to you accurately and without falling into a series of cliches. Then again, cliches can, despite what your writing instructor often tells you, be very useful. If your goal is to communicate to as many people as possible, the meaning is often not most universally discussed by using conventions in which everyone is intimately familiar with, which, in this case, is a cliche. That said, it is a somewhat thorny issue that cannot be thoroughly approached in a short column meant to tell you about some new music released this week.  I include it here merely to point out how interesting the continued discussion about music can be even from the standpoint of something as basic as writing about music on a regular basis. Here, without further pseudo intellectual rambling, is this week's edition of Listener's Digest.

 Tops - "Easy Friends:" Montreal band, Tops, will be releasing this as a 7" next week. Easy going and poppy, the song features jangling guitars and unique female vocals.

FIDLAR - "Cheap Beer:" You have to admire the brazen youthfulness of this track. The band name is an acronym for "fuck it, dog - life's a risk," which seems to sum up the ethos of this whole song. A sloppy ode to cheap beer, which I can definitely get behind (because PBR isn't so bad when it is cold, no seriously), "Cheap Beer" is a great example of raucous garage rock with a great opening.

Teen Daze - "New Life:" It has hit home that I have been writing about synth driven electronic songs all summer and that every song alternates between this and garage rock. I apologize if that has gotten boring but there have been some really enjoyable things put out within these genres. "New Life" is an atmospheric track driven by synths and smooth vocals and the first single of the act's second album this year, which is set to be released this November.

The Album Leaf - "Descent:" A gorgeous instrumental track off of the quartet's upcoming EP. "Descent" masterfully employs guitar and synths to creating a sweeping track that grows in magnitude over time. This is a great change of pace from the alternating synth pop/garage rock cycle I just discussed. A pensive and satisfying song.

The Black Keys - "I Got Mine" (Tobacco Remix): OK, so this track came out a day before my normal cut off but it was just such a great remix, I had to include it. This remix, done by Black Moth Super Rainbow's frontman Tobacco, mixes sensibilities to create a much stronger version of this song, in my opinion. Michael Torsell
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