Friendly Fires - Friendly Fires

by Simon T Diplock

The coolest record of the year so far

"They probably would have pushed us down and stuck ‘kick me’ signs on our backs in school but with their very first record Friendly Fires have created something undeniably, irrefutably and so damn stylishly awesome."

New-Noise is a square. Seriously, a total geek. So we just shouldn’t be able to get along with the debut disc from Friendly Fires, a sexy, skinny St. Albans trio that are positively dripping with cool. Somehow though, it doesn’t matter that we can’t sing but they chuck out harmonies like confetti, it makes no difference that we can’t dance yet they throw shapes like the side of a pencil case, and it’s irrelevant that while we were humming into a recorder, they were clearly listening to the coolest records and messing with a rack of synths. This album is so good see, that we can’t begrudge the band behind it a damn thing.

The quality and cool is there from the off- opener ‘Jump In The Pool’ wasting no time combining sharp lyrics and hip-shaking carnival percussion with soothing brass, vocal thrusts, and waves of starry noise that you’d never expect in such a solid gold, clean and concise song- but this is no sexy fumble before a disappointing finish, the consistency here is incredible.

‘On Board’ is ‘You Got The Love’ run through a backfiring guitar amp, ‘Skeleton Boy’ subverts 90’s dance hit ‘You’re Not Alone’ to enter blockbuster-making territory of its own and ‘Paris’ is pretty much perfect- a shimmering chrome-clad pop song borrowing from old and new and injected with original pizzazz. It’s everything disco-punkers Men, Women & Children nearly were, everything Chromeo could one day be, starts like the best party and winds up on a wave of whispers that any of the post-rock top-flight would kill for.

There are few musical hints of the band’s past playing mathy post-hardcore but the heart-in-mouth passion of that genre translates here, to a sound that sometimes feels criminally cold and detached, without a hitch, and little more than half an hour after swirling into life ‘Friendly Fires’ is done, doing nothing but demanding you to press play again. They probably would have pushed us down and stuck ‘kick me’ signs on our backs in school but with their very first record Friendly Fires have created something undeniably, irrefutably and so damn stylishly awesome. Hear this now.

Be the first to comment on this article