Friendly Fires - Friendly Fires

FRIENDLY FIRES
Friendly Fires

Yet more new indie/dance music from the UK. It’s a toss of a coin nowadays as to whether it’s going to be good or awful. Thankfully, Friendly Fires eponymous debut falls into the former category, as the trio from St. Albans offer up vibrant dance with pop melodies. Opening track Jump In The Pool bursts from the speakers with its samba beats and Klaxons-style vocal harmonies. It’s an ambitious and impressive start, which continues with the optimistic Paris, as romantic lyrics sit atop hectic percussion. Later, Strobe comes in, sounding like Hot Chip and LCD Soundsystem frolicking together on the beach.

Ed McFarlane’s vocals are generally nicely restrained in a shoegazey way, although when he actually opens up his lungs fully on Lovesick he sounds like every anonymously generic dance vocalist you’ve ever heard. This track is one of very few weaker offerings here, and the album is strong enough to carry such fillers.

Friendly Fires recorded this album themselves in vocalist Ed McFarlane’s parents’ garage, on a laptop, laying down one instrument after the next and then recording the vocals using a crappy microphone gaffer taped to a mic stand. So it’s all the more impressive that the result sounds so well-produced.

Comparisons will undoubtedly be made to Late Of The Pier and Klaxons and, while Friendly Fires’ output is far more straightforward, the dance-floor fillers on offer here are equally appealing in their own way. Sophisticated and fun, Friendly Fires is a fine example dance music with a brain in its head.

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