More Questioning Needed
Fortune Drive have built up something of a reputation. Clever, different, destined for big things and they rock...(apparently). Heavy burdens to carry and hype that surely can only precede their downfall unless they can live up to it. Not so much an Arctic Monkeys style media circus but a quietly confident and informed word of mouth by people who like so called 'real' music, which is something to be a lot more proud of.
Touted around as an 'incredible' live band by some I was completely and utterly underwhelmed when Icaught them at Glastonbury in the summer. to throw the worse insult you can give to any rock band - they were BORING. Very boring at that. My cup of tea, but with no sugar.
Reviewing their album might seem like a chore, but I want them to prove me wrong. Perhaps I had a tad too much pear cider flowing through my veins, perhaps I missed something... perhaps not. 'A Modern Question' is without doubt one of the most unremarkable albums I have listened to for some time. Never mind the sugar they forgot to put the teabag in.
Opening tracks 'Said it All' and 'From Start to Finish' can only be described as average, sounding exactly like all of those 90's Britrock bands you can't remember the names of. The bouncing basslines and trebly guitar lines try desperately to swagger like those of the considerably better bands that fortune drive are aspiring to.
'My Girlfriend's An Arsonist' is much better, in both title and tune. A pumping distorted bassline drives the song along with energy while the looser and sloppier guitar is much more akin to the 'rock 'n' roll' that the band claim vehementely to be. However it proves to be a false dawn. Next song 'Roses' raucous riffage is going fine until my major problem with Fortune Drive is highlighted in all its dreariness. The vocals, with their annoying laddish subtext and horrid MOR drone like an infected and poisonous thorn in the side.
Turning a potentially good rock band into a painful stereophonics-like exercise in blandness, singer Bobby Anderson has cast a spell over his fellow bandmates, who could do so much better things with the shackles taken off. The desire to be the next in a current long line of cocksure townie rock icons rubs off on the rest of the band who never quite push it far enough for fear of alienating the beer swilling masses. Tom from Kasabian would be proud...
The album's pinnacle of crapness is 'Clown Factory'. Indebted to the Kelly Jones school of enforced sentimentality and delivered in the same agonisingly awful Rod Stewart drawl.."we could be kings for all of our days.." I think a beheading is in order.
"Like all my other kicks, I kick you when I need" bellows Bobby in a rare attempt at wit, falling flat on his face like a kid who befriends the school bullies for safety.
It is no coincidence that all the best bits of the album are instrumental. The luscious intro to 'The Goodness', 'To the Rye's ascending and descending guitar freak-out and the Johnny Greenwood inspired guitar solos that are pepper the otherwise tasteless soup. The production is suitably beefy and the music occasionally awkward and clever but is brought back down to a sodden, shit covered earth time after time.
Perhaps the 'Modern Question' is how these bands manage to get it so wrong. Convinced of their own rock 'n' roll credentials they are blissfully unaware of missing the point entirely. Desperate to please, and smug from misguided praise, Fortune Drive should sack their singer, get a proper freak in to replace him and go back to the drawing board ASAP..