Kicking off mononyms Friday, a breakthrough rock hit…
[Video]
[5.57]
Lichelle: Phantogram raised me, and I’ve been a Chris Corner-vocals-era Sneaker Pimps truther since forever, so this spacey, hypnotic, rock-tinged track was made for me. And the lyrics unfold in a hazy, vaguely creepy, Giallo-like way, which is always a plus with me. Let “Monster Mash” rest for a bit, and put this on your Halloween party track list instead.
[8]
Ashton Arbus: Fontaines D.C. has reached their natural endpoint: European post-punk’s Maroon 5. Just look at how hot Grian Chatten is in the video with his shirt unbuttoned!
[2]
Alfred Soto: “Understand this is your life, you can go on dreaming” is the standout line in this slow electronic thumper. I believe it — so long as generative AI keeps the fuck away.
[6]
Iain Mew: The vocals bellowed into a wind-tunnel, the glassy synth chimes, the shuddering guitars, all add up to something both fun and surprisingly weighty. There is a sense that there is a smoke machine on full blast at times, and they just about get away with actually singing “cinematic feeling” as part of the cinematic feeling.
[7]
David Allun Jones: In which Fontaines D.C. decide to give future arena and stadium tour ticket buyers their money’s worth with a breathtakingly massive in scope invitation to the center of Hell. Lesser bands would probably drown under the lofty ambitions of “Marianne”’s cryptic overindulgence. These Irish lads, guided once again by Romance producer James Ford, admirably never lose grasp of the wheel, adding new levels of anthemic grandeur to the song’s goth-noir underpinnings the deeper it descends into the Land of Despair. “You should come and stay here/You can follow my lead/I can help you disappear”? If singer Grian Chatten’s devil-tongued enticement includes a lengthy stay inside “Marianne”’s grand finale fireworks, an intoxicatingly polyphonic bloom of “la-la-la” lullabies and James Bond orchestration, then let me pack an overnight bag.
[10]
Nortey Dowuona: Halfway through listening to this song, I instead threw on a record also produced by James Ellis Ford, a tender, if heavy song about surviving and fleeing the despair and fury of the wretched to the warm, loving embrace of freedom and agency, with a brighter, stronger voice which happily carries that hope with each twang of the witchy soprano. It was a better listen, had an even better drum roll near the end. Returning to this, I felt the overweening ambition crumbling as the song slowly stretched towards its end, no climax, no catharsis, just a long dulling slog of joyless reheating of raisin bran bread slices. A waste of time.
[0]
Jel Bugle: They sound like Tame Impala now, not that I was that au fait with what they sounded like before! A bold new pop direction, a new cohort of fans!
[6]