Fiendly Fires- Friendly Fires.
Three uber cool young fellows oozing confidence, sex and undoubtedly more sex, provide the nation with an unexpected pivotal record. Friendly Fires’ debut self titled release mocks the misery of nu rave, the unprecedented flow of fiction and promises to ignite stereos with jazzy, dance provocation and fashion.
It is the typical album you would hear and despise when you walked into a store you couldn’t afford to buy anything in, however secretly found yourself downloading from your ever increasing istore account. The conventional album pretentious magazines would clasp onto, hoping to be the first to have told you. But by God is it worth it. Friendly Fires is just quite simply brilliant and impossible to truly turn your back on after a listen, regadless of their apparent offensive skinnies and flash hats. You want, crave and desire more from the trio, expecting a hip shaking track to follow the groove the one prior to produced.
A designer band perhaps, but one that have managed to fight off their potentially damaging stereotype with a stonking first release. Opening track ‘Jump In The Pool’ leaves nothing to be desired. Chilling or preparing for a big night, 'Jump In The Pool' can entice both emotions; soothing brass, Christiano Ronaldo sharp lyrics and carnival-esque percussion, each play a part in preparing listeners for an ingenious slice of pop fusion. Exhaustion creeps in by the end of the track that the next defers. Awesome start to what could be the ride of your life.
‘Paris’ is almost perfect, once more; original yet inavertedly recycled brilliantly. Vocals taken from au revoir Simone, coincide fantastically with the exquisiteness that could probably even be referred to as an average track on the album. Poised with glamour, hope and more sex (these boys love it), ‘Paris’ manages to strip music to the soul and revamp on a laptop that works wonders.
It’s quite a difficult one to review in all fairness. Criticisms can only lie in the familiarity of at least 5 tracks - yet only due to the craze that is underground Friendly Fires. Remember Arctic Monkeys first album? Well this is better. Much better, in fact so good I might write to NME and tell them myself.
Imagine pulsations for 38 minutes solid; addictive, charismatic charm tunes. Friendly Fires escalate all my expectations with this stunning first album; challenging even the greatest of debuts. If it were a grower I would tell you; however instead I need not. Too cool for school? Yes. Pretentious? No, but I wouldn’t give a shit if they were with this kind of album churning out.