Hailing from St. Albans, an English commuter city known musically for producing the Zombies, Friendly Fires arrive on the heels of the British indie-dance zeitgeist helmed by the Klaxons and New Young Pony Club. Although their self-titled debut has the immediacy and hard hooks that riddle so much of this genre, Friendly Fires show an amplified, ambitious, and inventive attention to detail that helps steer them away from sounding like just another polished party band.
That said, the most striking characteristic of Friendly Fires is that every track sounds like an indie club hit. This energy is relentless to a comical degree, and ends up being the group's Achilles' heel. "Jump in the Pool" opens with heavily produced vocal layering that brings to mind 10cc's "I'm Not in Love"; the subtle vocal additions courtesy of lead singer Ed Macfarlane match the lush wall of guitars and Duran Duran-style wood-block-and-cowbell percussion. Never content to stick to the rails of an already memorable vocal melody, Macfarlane has a tendency to overdub in every direction, brilliantly emphasizing the word "pool" so it sounds like a clipped beat, and allowing an equally strong falsetto line to scorch through the spaces between.
"Paris", with backing vocals from Au Revoir Simone, is similarly effect-laden, culminating in washes of renaissance cathedral reverb. Like many of their peers, Friendly Fires nod frequently to the 1980s, particularly on "Strobe", at the center of which Edd Gibson provides a gorgeous reversed guitar loop, and "White Diamonds", which sounds like early Cure mixed with "Strangelove"-era Depeche Mode. The bass lines continually stick to classic, bouncy disco octaves that keep the dance vibe set at full speed ahead, and Friendly Fires pull off every move with considerable finesse, preserving all the euphoric dynamism of their powerful live shows.
Friendly Fires are the infallible kings of the melodic reprise, and almost every track features two choruses. Rather than sounding like a dull muddle, however, the songs are so carefully arranged that everything keeps your attention. The band recorded the entire album in the garage of Macfarlane's parents' house, laying down tracks on a laptop using "a crappy microphone gaffer taped to a mic stand," but without top-notch mixing drafted in from a variety of sources, Friendly Fires would sound like a completely different record. As it is, Friendly Fires is teeming with ideas, and although the record's consistent sound can be exhausting-- there is no release, no relaxation in tempo-- it's encouraging to locate a new band with too much passion, so much that it can hardly execute its ideas on one page.
