Friendly Fires debuted in 2008, in the long shadow of Bloc Party’s Silent Alarm and the shorter shade of the “Gossip Girl” soundtrack. They went on hiatus just three years later, exiting at precisely the moment when the band’s hazy blend of disco and effervescent funk was primed for a mainstream takeover (Walk the Moon, Mike Posner). They’ve spent the years since 2011’s Pala collaborating with a litany of pop producers who lean into the band’s more electronic tendencies—Disclosure, FaltyDL, Dusky. Inflorescent, then, is a bit of an inversion for the band: Rather than live-sounding danceable post-punk, they’ve found a new home in the smooth digital surfaces of house music.
The shift towards synths and strings doesn’t exactly come as a surprise—their last album was filled with drum machines and reverb-washed pianos to counterbalance every gritty bassline. And though frontman Ed Macfarlane has also tossed out the idea of a Friendly Fires piano house album, Inflorescent feels more indebted to French filter disco, from the syncopated loops that kick off the Disclosure-assisted “Heaven Let Me In” to the oscillating Bowie-esque guitars that open “Can’t Wait Forever.”
Perhaps because so much time has passed, it feels like a seamless progression; they sound lighter and more fleet-footed, and no less diverse than before. “Silhouettes,” with its “ba-ba-ba” refrain to its laser-like synths, recalls the ebullient jazz of Todd Terje, while “Lack of Love” evokes the chill of Balearic house. Nothing sounds unnatural, or too far from the band’s previous work, but the pretense of “rock” is out of the picture.
It can sometimes seem as though Friendly Fires are playing catch up for a post-EDM scene that largely sprung up in their absence. The cooing vocals and build-up/drop patterns grow a little tiring across the album despite their careful production, because they’re working in well-trodden territory in a post-Flume landscape. But there is a winning warmth to their music. Perhaps this is due to their dismal environs—“We need to have a miserable view to feel like we want to transport ourselves somewhere else,” Macfarlane recently said, contrasting the airiness of their music with their rainy hometown of St. Albans. Only someone who desperately wants to escape can make a fantasy sound this alluring, after all. And in the dog days of August, a cool jet of European house offers a welcome respite.
