Fanfarlo – Reservoir

Fanfarlo - Reservoir

This starts out as a very sedate affair, albeit with a big bang on the bass drum, ‘I’m A Pilot’ sounding not dissimilar to Mystery Jets, with a song title that would not look out of place amongst theirs. It sways gently back and forth, building up to something like a crescendo without being too big to really surprise anybody. Some chuggy guitars every now and then, a few handclaps and our time’s up. Not an overwhelming album opener but its unlikely to make you want to turn it off, if you’ve noticed it’s still going you may well say “That’s nice,” and hang around for some more.

If you did do that you’re rewarded with some promising funky sounding guitars and appropriately ethereal aaahi-ing on ‘Ghosts’. The vocal doesn’t seem to have changed but by now you might be dancing as that bass line just doesn’t quit. There might be some pretty profound lyrics going on here, I picked up “The sky is so shallow” which may mean something in context, but on the whole the voice kind of gets lost in its own insipidness. It doesn’t really match the poppy backdrop. It continues in a similar vein, they seem to have noticed the issue by ‘Luna’ as they put some reverb on it and throw some backing vocals on to add a little bit of something, a bit of “wow, they really pressed that button”. Synthy keyboards mixed with thoughtful noise give a bit of interest but it all cools down by the end, the effects seem to have been dropped as it turns into just another song that starts all full of bluster, then calms down and then oh, yep, it’s getting louder again.

Again and again the songs keep starting with a bit of gusto, then the vocal comes along and seems to steal the impetus. You can hear the rest of the band trying in the background but the chap with the microphone just seems so laid-back, he can’t even be bothered to form all of his words, instead opting to let them fall away or merge together in a shambolic mess of missed plosives. It’s not that I dislike this album, not a bit, it’s lovely, but since when have musicians aimed for lovely? Imagine Clap Your Hands Say Yeah and Mercury Rev waking up from a nap together. Cosy.

‘If It Is Growing’ seems to be the slow one (same vocal, less drum) but then the fun bit happens. Maybe it’s just because it’s predecessor was as it was, but we seem to have a winner in the intriguingly-titled ‘Harold T. Wilkins Or How To Wait For A Very Long Time’. It is actually really tremendous, and apparently about a man who liked treasure and spaceships (cheers, internet). They seem to sprint over the ‘Finish Line’, the words stop drawling so much and pop along with the songs a mite more cohesively to make some really top notch noise. Alas, it’s then all over with a short ditty which, unless he’s really slurring his words, has no voice.

So an above average album with at least two fantastic songs showing that these Swedish-led music people have it in them to make something all the kids will scream for, they just don’t all the time.

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