Friendly Fires Friendly Fires by: Steve Scully Mon:27-Oct-08 Label: XL Year: 2008 WB rating 46 out of 100

It’s 80s dance-pop with lo-fi substance. This is a paraphrased and collated summation of the Friendly Fires’ trumpet sounding. The 80s are becoming an almost constant presence in dance and pop music nowadays and these up-and-comers are no exception to the rule (although comment pertaining to substance is a complete lie).

Musicians may gather under the 80s periodical umbrella because it seems to spew short doses of money or just because it’s a kitschy and so cleverly ironic good time. This long derided music period has been pilfered of its breathy male vocals, extensive selection of keyboard sounds, two guitars and miscellaneous cowbells for Friendly Fires self-titled debut. It’s intriguing in the same way every other ‘indie-dance’ act that has arrived or departed in the last three years has been. Pushing all the boundaries band-wagon riding allows, Friendly Fires bop their way through an enjoyable and completely unsurprising selection of poppy dance numbers.

Every song on this album conjures up memories of high school music lessons. Friendly Fires is built on a solid base of the keyboard demo button – they press the button, clap to the beat and away we go. That said, however, it is the music that saves this album to some extent and there are some good riffs. These can, however, be overwhelmed by a Klaxons style vocal double-tracked by a falsetto replica.

Then lyrics; pretty simple really. All that’s really needed is a few phrases about good times that can be repeated and chanted until a percussive breakdown/dance section. The whole album just reeks of good fun party times; ‘On Board’ has the vapid mantra “climb up on board/giving it a little bit more” as well as the odiously repetitious “don’t stop”. ‘Jump In The Pool’ goes valleys deeper with “I could tell that you wanted to jump in the pool” and it continues on this formula for the entire album. ‘Ex Lover’ and, for that matter, Friendly Fires finishes with what can really only be described as the looped recording of a joyously flatulent robot. A good round-up of the album overall: it’s all fun and noise but no substance.

Friendly Fires are reasonable musicians; the arrangements are well-balanced and their execution is in tune and time. This is, however, just a truly unremarkable album.