posted 09/26/2008 (Fri) @ 05:00 am
>>> Music Reviews
Audio Fiction - Audio Fiction (2008)
Retro Pop-Rock / ’80s Revival / Punk
Face-melting guitar, chic retro vox and plenty of punky ‘tude
- Way Out
- Kite High
- Wishful Thinking
- Ever Wonder
- Race the Hourglass
- Johnny Go
- Days Like These
- All I Have
- Suffocate
- I’m Alive
One day in New York City, Garbage and No Doubt fell into a rusted blender from the ’80s. Present your glasses, boys: here’s the smoothies in Audio Fiction, eagerly awaiting consumption by your ears.
Vocalist and Upright Citizen Brigadier Kristin has a voice perfectly suited to this band’s brand of energized, Angelfishy punk pop. Their self-titled debut froths over with sunny, effortless melody tempered with biting, scandalous lyrics and an infectious attitude. Double X chromosome swagger and Siouxsie peek-a-boos tag team the slick, and at times face-melting guitar, such as on the Hendrixian octave madness of standout “Kite High”’s soaring licks. The evident passion in the Richard Hellish breakdown in “Race the Hourglass” smacks of Girlfriend-era Matthew Sweet, a delicious reminder of times when it was still cool to take a guitar solo. And it’s not an isolated incident. Noisy, punky axe grinding flares up and colors many of the tracks on Audio Fiction. For those scared off, they do slow it down a bit on the coasting “All I Have.”
Lyrical miners can strike gold here, too. It’s hard to miss some of Audio Fiction’s observations on life: “You fell down and you can’t get up/ Life’s a bitch when you’re fucked up.” Then there’s the tongue-in-cheek, Pixies-ish story of an actor on the rise in “Johnny Go.” He owns a beach house and a collection of single serving friends he trades in for pills. The tune ends with a reminder of Johnny’s humanity: he’s “sinking in the quicksand” of Hollywood, where he knows he’s trapped for the rest of his life. He should get together with Tony, the bicycle-riding superhero from The Pixies’ “Tony’s Theme.”
Impossible not to groove to, Audio Fiction clearly know what they’re doing as performers, and the tunes speak for themselves. Just in time for autumn, these ten summery tracks drip retro cool. Don’t worry, the really cool kind. No drum machines or flocks of seagulls in sight. Fans of Shirley Manson’s early work in Angelfish would certainly get a kick out of these cats, as well as anyone who loves catchy, female-fronted rock-pop-punk-et-al with personality.
Note
Audio Fiction will be officially released on November 25, 2008. Any copies sold before this date are part of a limited “fans only” promotional release… but that shouldn’t scare you from listening to some samples or getting it now at CDbaby.
Tags: angelfish, best of 2008 candidates, female vocalists, guitar solos, pop, power pop, punk, retro, rock
