A lot has happened in the past month — most of it utterly terrific — but rather than let the darkness totally envelop us, I thought I’d come through with a little cheer and some new songs to fill your ears. (Besides, we’re going to need some serious playlists to get us through the next four years — that and a hearty helping of liquor and luck — so better start stocking up…) As I start to gear up for my annual exercise of extolling my favorite listens of the year, there were a few entries that won’t make the list, but are still worth a listen so wanted to share them before I go dark for a bit — one more time before the big look back and the heart of the year-end holidays!
We’ve got a trio of albums this time from our friends across the pond (who better to accompany us on our path to the end of the rainbow and our reign as the world’s leading light?) and some long-time favorites back with solid, not stellar outings. And since we are walking into a long four years we’ll pull a pair of songs from each album to start rounding those soundtracks out. We’ll start with the youngest of the bunch, the Irish quintet Fontaines D.C., and their fourth album Romance, which came out a few months back. It’s their first in two years (2022’s Skinty Fia landed at #10 on my year-end list) and it finds the band stretching their sound even further. The album comes across as something of a mixtape, one where the band offers their impressions of some of the kingdom’s best over the years. There’s the Depeche-inspired title track that opens the proceedings, the Cure-ified twins of “Sundowner” and “Favourite,” and the Smiths-sounding “Bug,” which gallops along on a melody that would make Mr Marr proud.
Unfortunately the disparate influences and homages deliver a somewhat disjointed listen overall and sound like a band searching for something to say rather than the assertive, focused fury found on their previous albums. I’m in the minority here (a trend, of late) as the reviews raved about this one, calling it their best yet, and while it left me a little cold there are still a number of strong songs to listen to. Lead single “Starburster” and the aforementioned “Bug” are two faves, so give them a listen here:
Speaking of the Cure and glowing reviews, the legends returned a few weeks ago with their first album in sixteen years, Songs of a Lost World. The album debuted at #1 (their first in thirty two years!) and has already been nominated for a pair of Grammys (their first in twenty three years), amazingly equaling their previous total overall. (Seriously — these guys had only been nominated twice before?! Fontaines have three noms and they just got started — the Cure have been around for forty five frigging years!) It’s almost as if they could tell they would be needed, as we stand on the precipice of gloom and doom — if the last voice I hear before I fall into the abyss is Robert Smith’s, that’s not an end to lament too strenuously…
Despite sporting only eight songs in its nearly hour-long runtime, the band leans heavily into its mood conjuring magic, giving nearly every song a two to three minute preamble before those glorious vocals materialize out of the mist. (Closing “Endsong” goes even further with nearly six and a half minutes of it in its ten minute duration!) Prior to that it’s all swirling synths and glossy guitars, spinning clouds of cotton candy for you to fall into and devour. Lyrically it’s pretty dour (Smith wrote the songs grieving the loss of his parents and brother, leading to sunny sentiments such as, “here is to love, to all the love falling out of our lives — hopes and dreams are gone…” and “my weary dance of age and resignation moves me slow toward a dark and empty stage where I can sing of all I know”), but that’s balanced by the luxuriant, silky music the words are nestled in. It’s really pretty stuff and an album that seems intent on giving listeners an oasis to lose themselves in (not that we need anything like that right now…) Opening single “Alone” and “A Fragile Thing” are two of my favorites — give them a spin here:
Last up is the latest from another set of legends, the lords of electro Underworld, back with their tenth full length Strawberry Hotel. It’s their first official album in eight years (2016’s Barbara Barbara, We Face a Shining Future was their last), but it finds the pair more in line with the eclectic hopscotching of 2019’s Drift project, which released a new song every week. That project showed them working with snippets of songs in several ways, changing the mood and impact of the track depending on that version’s particular configuration. It was an insight into their process and showed how iterative they unsurprisingly were, taking a piece of lyrics or melody from a banger and repurposing it into a more plaintive, downtempo tune or vice versa. It led to a mix of varying quality in terms of songs, but there were ultimately plenty of highlights embedded within once they finally settled on a definitive version of a track. (Many of these were compiled in the single disc Drift Series 1 later that year.)
This feels like a more condensed version of that effort where the pair work on unfinished elements before honing them into a final product, letting the listener sit as an observer in their workshop while they tinker. There’s repeated bits of vocals from “King of Haarlem” and “denver luna” (later appearing in “Oh Thorn!” and an acappella version of the song, respectively), there’s repurposed melodies from previous outings as on “Techno Shinkansen” and the aforementioned “luna” (which pilfer pieces of prior classics “King of Snake” and “Born Slippy,” respectively), there’s even mildly augmented spoken word segments like “Ottavia,” which receives the sparest of sonic accompaniments. Not all of it works, but as on the broader Drift project there are enough out and out winners to call you back — from soaring, full color rainbows like “Hilo Sky” and “Gene Pool” to straightforward bangers like the first single “and the colour red” and its house-centric follow-on “Sweet Lands Experience,” these guys show why they’re still important after 30 years of doing this. The aforementioned “luna” and the throbbing “Burst of Laughter” are two of my faves — check em out here:
That’s it for now — see you next time for the annual look back! Try and stay sane in the meantime, my friends…
–BS