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(2023) Foyer Red - Yarn the Hours Away
Review:
A Brooklyn five-piece founded by a drummer, a singer/clarinetist, and a singer/guitarist, Foyer Red expanded their lineup to included members of such idiosyncratic acts as koleżanka and Hypoluxo before recording their full-length debut, Yarn the Hours Away, with producer Jonathan Schenke (Parquet Courts, Liars). While those credits may give some indication of the offbeat nature of the band, it won't prepare first-timers for the full of force of the group's highly melodic merger of sunny indie pop, angular indie rock, and doses of art, punk, and math rock. A song with the title "Plumbers Unite!" sets the stage with insistent drums, a punky bass groove, squealing melodic guitar lines, and lead singers who both harmonize and compete for attention. As the track list unfolds, Elana Riordan (the clarinetist) proves to be an essential component of their sound, delivering wide-ranging melodies with a crisp, smiling vocal tone that contrasts guitarist Mitch Myers' Fred Schneider-like patter. Other references to turn-of-the-'80s new wave and post-punk abound, although Foyer Red's distinctive formula lands far away from pastiche, with a song like the polyrhythmic "Oh, David" approximating a power-trio vocal harmony group, and the frequent starts, stops, and direction changes of "Blue Jazz" achieving something much closer to Bitte Orca-era Dirty Projectors than to Devo or the B-52s. On that point, Foyer Red might have risked circuitry overwhelm here if not for a certain consistent spaciousness and more restrained, midtempo entries like the tuneful "Gorgeous" and closing track "Toy Wagon." The latter's relatively ambling rhythms favor gentle head-bobbing over the more-prevalent pogo dancing on board -- even after the tempo picks up precipitously at the midway point. In the end, the album's more demanding qualities go down easy thanks to solid songs and an overriding sense of good fun. — bandcamp
Track List:
01 - Plumbers Unite!
02 - Unwaxed Flavored Floss
03 - Wetland Walk
04 - A Barnyard Bop
05 - Etc
06 - Gorgeous
07 - Blue Jazz
08 - Pocket
09 - Oh, David
10 - Time Slips
11 - Big Paws
12 - Toy Wagon
Media Report:
Genre: art rock, indie-rock
Country: Brooklyn, New York, USA
Format: FLAC
Format/Info: Free Lossless Audio Codec
Bit rate mode: Variable
Channel(s): 2 channels
Sampling rate: 44.1 KHz
Bit depth: 16 bits
Compression mode: Lossless
Writing library: libFLAC 1.2.1 (UTC 2007-09-17)
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