Friendly Fires have got a new self-titled LP out on XL packed full of anthemic goodness. This isn't really my thing but I can see the appeal, there are all sorts of classic pop influences in the mix here, Liquid Liquid cowbells, disco beats, funk guitars, white boy soul crooning and big, big choruses.. This stuff's blatantly gonna tear up the indie disco. The vocals sound like they fell right out of the eighties, they've got that weird sort of multi-tracked thing going on to make them sound all epic like. As Phil points out it does veer dangerously towards Scissor Sisters fairly frequently but still.. I think they probably just about get away with it. On CD and LP.
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What their label says...
Most will probably have heard of Friendly Fires already - the band have gained a huge amount of popularity over the past 18 months playing clubs and venues up and down the country and releasing three much lauded limited singles. They were the first unsigned band to appear on Channel 4’s ‘Transmission’ show and Radio 1 DJs Zane Lowe, Colin Murray and Rob Da Bank are all fans.
Last year, the St Alban’s trio released a super limited seven-inch, ‘Paris’, which was judged to be the Single Of The Week in both the NME and The Guardian. Now signed to XL, they count Radiohead, The White Stripes and Adele as their labelmates.
Creating their own unique sound, it’s not hard to see what all the fuss is about. The debut album, two years in the making, is a heady mixture of dancefloor friendly monsters, amidst beautiful washes of understated lo-fi pop music. The band tried working with various producers, but in the end opted for the same lo-fi, DIY aesthetic they’ve always perused.
