If you've got some electrical engineering experience and a desire to get rich quick, here's my advice: Invent the Loveless effects pedal. You could pretty much charge whatever you want for it; while a few button pushes at the Sam Ash are all that separate you from getting the tone of Dimebag Darrell or whoever the DOD Grunge module is supposed to emulate, would-be Kevin Shields still go on Creation-style spending sprees to get anywhere near his sound. You're guaranteed brand loyalty as well, if Hideout is any indication. With an almost charming defiance, Bay Area foursome Film School are long on whooshy, gliding guitar lines and short on a whole lot that can distinguish them from the dozens of bands doing the same exact thing.
While they sometimes get lost on a walking tour of the greyer expanses of indie's past two decades, at the very least they sound like they have a map. I'd think that giving your record a pitch-perfect 4AD title like Hideout and hiring a bassist/sparingly used co-vocalist named Lorelei is evidence enough of that, but it extends to their instrumental approach as well. "Lovesong"-ish single "Two Kinds" has hangdog open chords ringing in the key of dejection (I believe it's A minor) over downstroked bass riffs, while "Compare" combats the temptation to dismiss Film School on the count of crafting songs that would probably fall apart in an unplugged setting. Building from dot-matrix delay hits and a grainy drum track, it unfurls into clarion guitar sounds that recall the canyonesque outro to Tears For Fears' "Shout" by way of Interpol's "Untitled".
Where Film School falters is in their sense of pacing. Opener "Dear Me" has a flat but emphatic vocal hook, but whatever bracing qualities it has gets lost over five minutes of clanging, formless chords. Over the span of Hideout, it's becomes a widespread issue of sequencing as well. Whenever Film School build momentum, it gets squandered on chorus pedal instrumentals as useless as your average blowjob skit and tracks that become pruned after soaking in pools of murky watercolors. "Florida" seems dingy, rainy, and boring, while it's hard to tell what's a worse foundation for "Sick Hipster Nursed By Suicide Girl", its title or its overly rigid melody.
As indicated by their name, there's something overly academic and mannered about what Film School do. At the very least, it's managed to get them higher-profile opening slots with acts like the National and Silversun Pickups, but that's the problem: Film School seem suited for an "opening band" purgatory, professional enough to provide 30 minutes of milling-about music, but unlikely to ever steal thunder from groups divisive enough to be loved.
