Drowsy indie-pop
This is The Fresh and Onlys fourth album but this reviewer must admit to being completely ignorant of their dreamy, indie-psych charms until this moment. Their sound is often expansive and drowsy, and whilst there are some real stand out tracks this kind of poppy psych does lend itself to drifting away which did cause the odd lapse of concentration whilst playing the record.
The album opens well with 20 Days & 20 Nights, this is a strong tune, melodic, quite twee and super jangly. It has you bouncing along with it straight away and sports a rather lovely expansive guitar sound (full of echoes) and sweet vocal delivery. Yes Or No is a reasonably catchy number, a strong central pop melody and sing along chorus pull you with them (reminiscent of contemporaries like The Vaccines et al).
Unfortunately though, the strong opening to quickly fizzles out and the next few tracks seem to leave a blank spot in this reviewers memory even after several play-throughs they still felt like strangers. Long Slow Dance, Prescence Of Mind and Dream Girls are very pleasant and pretty little pop songs with nice bass lines and the odd little melodic moment but do continue to induce a certain amount of zoning out.
Things do pick up again however with the excellent Fire Alarm an 80s toned track with heavy synth backing and an upbeat feel. And Executioner's Song, arguably the best track on the album - brass and slide guitar are reminiscent of Calexico and the track is full of dreamy atmospherics; sounding expansive and making you think of huge open spaces, nicely done.
There is a lot going on throughout this record in terms of style; it is cohesive but also seems to be constantly shifting so you never quite know what will pop up next. A few low moments early on do threaten to derail things but it comes back together later on to really hook you in - not so much a mixed bag, as no track is bad, but it doesn't always work perfectly.