Album Review: I'm Going Away - The Fiery Furnaces

The Fiery Furnaces have always felt like a band that like to do things the hard way just for the sake of it. From their days of performing every concert in a different genre-style through to this, their sixth album.

Because individually these song are glorious slices of pop music. 'Drive to Dallas' sounds like the White Stripes at the top of their game - a relaxed soul-country-ballad that descends into a freak-out midway through. Yet BlackPlastic can't help but feel their is too much on I'm Going Away and far too much of it sounds far too similar.

Consumed in sections it is, undeniably, great. If nothing else I'm Going Away proves that The Fiery Furnaces can write some of the best songs about relationships breaking down you will ever have heard. Take the horizontal blues of 'The End Is Near' or 'Even In The Rain' - the song writing is generally strong but as an album it needs a few of the weaker efforts thrown out and replacing with something totally different.

It's a shame because this is a band that have long since demonstrated their aptitude at variety and experimentalism - just take a handful of tracks from different releases and you will experience a wealth of different styles. As a result it almost feels like the Fiery Furnaces are laughing at us the listeners with this one, a classic case of the emperor's new clothes - is there really nothing to this beyond a few blues-soul pop songs or are is BlackPlastic just too dumb to get it?

Regardless, if you are fan there is likely to be enough here to interest you. Unfortunately if you have long been alienated by the Fiery Furnaces' deliberate attempts to be a difficult listen this is not likely to change your mind.

BP x

Out on Thrill Jockey on 24 August 2009. Available for pre-order at Amazon.co.uk on CD and LP [affiliate links].

Album Review: Illusions - Mikas

Totally unrelated to the well-known Mika, Mikas doesn't create campy hit pop music and instead prefers to focus on progressive trance instrumentals made for sunrises on open dance-floors.

BlackPlastic dislikes Mika (sans the 's') so much that almost anything else would be preferable. Illusions - a pleasant surprise then, even if that isn't saying much.

Illusions is actually alright, kinda, provided slightly ambient trance is your thing. It may fall slightly awkwardly down the gap that exists between the cheesy-Radio-One-playlisted-glowsticks-and-dance-anthems-chart-bothering Deadmau5 and a somewhat more sophisticated minimal tech-head like Gui Boratto but there are some moments here if you are prepared to sift.

Opener 'Spirit Emotion Part 2 (Extended)', (and yes, BlackPlastic is very aware of the unironic shitness of the title) is a brooding builder made of twinkling keys and mechanical basslines. 'Haze (Superclub Mix)' is, again, brooding and progressive with enough stabs of acid to make it stand out.

The problem is that Illusions doesn't really do anything new. At all. For every track the manages to capture the listener's attention there is another that passes by without you so much as noticing. So if you loved the slower, ambient stuff that Digweed and Sasha used to play ten years ago then you may find sething you enjoy but for the rest of use there just aren't enough ideas here.

BP x

P.S. Illusions has the worst album cover ever. Like so bad BlackPlastic couldn't face tainting the look of the site with it. Seriously.

Album Review: Beatdown - Various mixed by Scratch Perverts

BlackPlastic always says that if you own just one hip-hop album then it should be the compilation album Hip-Hop Don't Stop: The Greatest. Across two discs Scratch Perverts member Prime Cuts manages to create an inventive mix of pretty much every vital old school hip-hop record in existence. It features some of the best mixing BlackPlastic has ever heard, let alone heard committed to record.

As such BlackPlastic holds a bit of a soft one for the Scratch Perverts and was pleased to slip Beatdown, inspired by the Perverts hosted night at Fabric, into the CD player.

Beatdown: eclectic, knob on, pedal to the floor. This mix certainly isn't backwards in coming forward - there are 37 tracks throughout this 65 minute mix and as a result some great moments are pretty much guaranteed - the Martyn's Heartbeat Mix of Flying Lotus' 'Roberta Flack', for example.

Sadly they are just too few and far between and there is far too much that feels like it is only here because it is currently en vogue. As a whole it's a full on party style mix and Scratch Perverts have made much of the fact that they still play contemporary, current selections, boasting the fact that the mix is modern and has plenty of dub-step...

...So here is the thing: dub-step is whack music for lame-o middle-aged urban wannabees. That includes Burial. Oh, and whilst we are sacrificing the sacred cows of the late 'noughties': Zomby (who features on Beatdown) is shit too.

So ultimately what BlackPlastic is saying is it doesn't matter if the mixing is fab and the track listing 'current': if the tunes don't stack up, they don't stack up. Just because your genre of choice is British and involves breakbeats it doesn't make it any good.  BlackPlastic would take Hip-Hop Don't Stop any day.

BP x

Available now - order on CD on Amazon.co.uk [affiliate link].

Album Review: Still Night, Still Light - Au Revoir Simone

BlackPlastic has a whopping crush on the delicate harmonies and wandering Casio keyboards of Au Revoir Simone. They manage to capture the feeling of waking up alone from a dream spent with a loved one whilst sounding like the soundtrack to an un-made Sofia Copolla film (more Virgin Suicides, less Marie Antoinette).

Fundamentally Still Night, Still Light is more of the same but we will let that slide when the same sounds so beautiful. The sound is actually somewhere between the ice-cold tunes of mini-album début Verses of Comfort Assurance and Salvation and the girl geek pop of second album The Bird of Music and it's a haunting position they occupy, whether on the jangly 'All Or Nothing' or the lonely, scared yet brave 'The Last One'.

Still Night, Still Light looms out of the dark like a betrayed friend and steals your heart and favourite t-shirt before running off, only ever to be seen again in the faces of strangers. It's a peculiarly familiar album and the hooks often sound like you have already heard them yet you can't help but still feel touched by the vulnerability - everything feels like it has been made of crate paper an sticky tape, the equivalent of a hand-made Valentine's card: all the more powerful for the fact.

Au Revoir Simone may not be able to get away with sounding so familiar forever. Maybe they will have to change in order to stay fresh. All BlackPlastic can say is grab this and hold it close because if the world damages Au Revoir Simone it is because the world is too rough, not them too soft.

BP x

Still Night, Still Light is out now.  Order it on CD or MP3 from Amazon.co.uk [affiliate links].

Album Review: KNIIFE PRRTY - KNIIFE PRRTY

KNIIFE PRRTY's début conjures a mixture of musical influences, sounding like the Go Find performing Depeche Mode songs on a rainy day. Far from the raucous event their name infers, this is an album of slow contemplation and slightly emo American vocals.

It makes a couple of missteps - occasionally it simply doesn't sound distinctive enough, as on the opening tracks 'Neil Diamond' and 'Wretched Heart'. Steve Pahl's vocals don't really stand up to close scrutiny - sounding like Ben Gibbard but without the feeling the result is a little over-polished in places.

Things are better where the music gets more creative. The stuttering rhythms of 'Pins Down' with its snatched vocals sounds like it was captured by a computer and evolved in isolation from human involvement. 'Change Your Mind' succeeds despite the focus on the vocals because the slower pace better suits their maudlin, somewhat apathetic nature whilst juxtapositioning threatening vocals with a voice that sounds incapable of delivering a bad word.

When KNIIFE PRRTY stop wearing their influences on their sleeve is when thing get genuinely interesting. The spoken delivery of 'Morning Nausea' with it's slow, dubby backing sounds like an American take on Massive Attack.

KNIIFE PRRTY have delivered a début that intrigues in places but ultimately fails to sustain interest. If they leave the angst and instead focus on emotion they could be ones to watch.

BP x

Check out KNIIFE PRRTY on their MySpace.

Avaliable now on Amazon.co.uk on MP3 [affiliate link].