Labels: donut friends
Review by: Andy Malcolm
This record was intended to come out a couple of years ago on the now defunct Keystone Ember records, but for various reasons it never saw the light of day. Luckily, the consistently amazing Donut Friends label have finally gotten round to pressing it up on vinyl, and you will no longer be deprived of hearing this awesome EP.
TMIFILW are ex-Party of Helicopters / Harriet the Spy, they have the vocalist from POH taking duties. And if you’ve heard the latest POH LP, then you’ll understand just how perfectly they go with the wonderfully spacey, dreamy indie rock / pop on this record. The sound that they have is absolutely huge. Big swirly atmospherics, lovely thick guitars, fuzzed up vocals, and just the right amount of distortion. Everything you want from an indie rock band. Opening song “Brantastic” dives on you from all directions, wrapping you up in it’s warm sound. Reminds me in parts of what the Blue Ontario were doing before we were cruelly deprived of that band too. “Bad Dreams” is totally blissed out. Repetetive, rolling guitars stand in the foreground ahead of the distant bleepy-blip keyboards, with the vocals virtually lost amidst the soundscape, almost like an additional instrument. Joe’s style works in a very different way here than it does with POH, where it’s all about the contrast. Here it is very much to do with how the vocals tie seamlessly to music. “The Fleet of the Armada” is positively enormous, the vocals are totally lost amidst everything. The last regular song is the utterly beautiful “NeverEverEven”, kicks off with one of my favourite introductions to a song ever, echoe-ing guitars play their repetetive rhythm out of your speakers, building up. The vocals wash over you, barely noticeable, though the lyrics are gorgeous. When it breaks down into some subtle twinkly guitars, well… it just has a similar effect on me as Christie Front Drive can. This song is worth buying the EP for alone. I just wish it were longer.
Something I also wish there was more of are the electronic inteludes they have between track 2 and 4, and also after that final song on the record. There must be something about the frequencies they use as this stuff is just perfect. Slightly like Joan of Arc in a way. But don’t take that as a negative! Thank you. And I hope that the music here as a whole is the direction that the new Harriet the Spy band (“New” Terror Class) is going in. Because if they are, it’s going to blow me away.
This is easily one of the best records I’ll hear all year, it is dark autumn nights and cold weather and music to play when you are feeling not exactly happy, and need something to wrap yourself up in when nobody else is there to help you.