Fanfarlo – Fire Escape
INDIE SPOTLIGHT!!!…
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[4.11]
Doug Robertson: Well, they’ve got the “escape” part sorted out. It‘s almost an abundance of escape, with its floaty vocals and meadow fresh guitars. It’s just a shame they didn’t include the “fire”.
[5]
Hazel Robinson: If you’ve ever wished Interpol would record a record with The Magic Numbers then it is your lucky day.
[5]
Pete Baran: It feels that there hasn’t been a successful band that has sounded a bit like this for quite some time. Now whether that means the world has been waiting for a band that sounds like this to make successful, or the world has routinely rejected bands that sound like this is difficult to say. My gut feeling is that the music is all there, but it will go down to how good Fanfarlo are in an interview. Because as fine as the music is, it seems to project a lack of personality that can only be compensated by a decent inkie interview or two. Also known as “Take Teenage Fanclub Bowling” syndrome.
[6]
Martin Skidmore: A lightier, poppier version of The Arcade Fire, this chamber pop number has plenty of strings and so on, and a choked, lifeless singer. It wants to be a bouncy and classy pop number, but it doesn’t get there, despite a reasonably bright opening.
[3]
Chuck Eddy: There are frilly hints of (post-Morrisey, maybe?) flamboyance in the singing here that suggest this might not be totally worthless. But if they want more points, they’ll need a more coherent song.
[2]
Iain Mew: This is undeniably pretty, and I’m generally one to stand up for pretty. Especially when said pretty is achieved via brass and synth arpeggios. Fanfarlo sit at a particularly bad point on the style scale though, where the prettiness is compromised for song structure but their song can’t stand up by itself and carries on leaning on the (reduced) prettiness. Everything is too forgettable and fluffy as a result. As far as British bands inviting comparisons to the Arcade Fire go, you’re far better off with Broken Records.
[4]
Alfred Soto: Pretty, maximalist, miserabilist. They could have called their song “Back Scrubber” and still used the trumpets.
[3]
Michaelangelo Matos: “I think I slip, I think I fall.” Is this guy giving himself stage directions? Maybe he could extend this courtesy to the instruments, not to mention his own fuzzy-headed voice.
[4]
Jonathan Bogart: Are they re-releasing it in the hopes of getting it to play over the gloriously sun-dappled images of two insanely beautiful white children running through soft-focus fields in a trailer to an indie movie? Because that’s about all I hear in it.
[5]