Today's featured shit

More of the same from these guys. I’ll maintain my crush on Cathy Lucas. The lead singer still sounds like David Byrne. “Replicate” is the first track and has prominent strings. Much better than anything Coldplay has ever tried. Don’t act so surprised.
Minimalists will appreciate “Lenslife.” Sometimes you don’t have to be complicated to make a good indie rock song. I was hoping “Tunguska” would be a ska song, but although it isn’t, it’s still my favorite track on the record.
The talking backing vocals (backtalking?) of “Tightrope” make that track particularly enjoyable. Every band seems to have a song named “Bones,” and Fanfarlo is no longer an exception. This sounds more like their older material. I also liked “A Flood.”
The record put me to sleep a little bit but just so I could dream about Lucas.

It’s a six-track EP. Apparently all the recordings are live, but I hear no audience. It must be like the Joel Shit Show featuring Joel Shit. “I’m a Pilot” leads off and sounds like a Talking Heads song. “Finish Line” is next, and also sounds like a Talking Heads song. See the pattern? There is also a woman who does backing vocals. I’m sure David Byrne has shared the mic before too. This is definitely a classic “you already know whether you like them” band.
“A Minor Place” is a Bonnie “Prince” Billy cover. Who am I to disagree? These are all songs from their full-length “Reservoir,” incidentally. This one is a little slower. I guess they have to do a cover if they want to sing a ballad.
From a songwriting perspective, it seems that the titles of the tracks show up in the lyrics early on. It’s very convenient if you happen to be using Windows Media Player on your work computer instead of iTunes on your MacBook because you’re doing a bunch of complicated file transfers with external hard drives in the other room, and you’re afraid to move anything, because you know how those Seagate drives are. All I have to do is listen and say “yep, that’s ‘Comets’ playing now.”
“Ghosts” is the classic “let’s end the EP on a quiet note” track. It still sounds like David Byrne, of course, but it’s the most modern of the tracks. Musically it sounds like a slow Rilo Kiley number, such as “85.” The band sounds like they’re really into this one. I bet they love to play it, well, live.