If I look back to the 00s, I feel like the first half of that decade was in indie circles some kind of revival for guitar and garage rock. The latter half on the other hand, saw the emergence of folk revival. When we reached 10s, I think the 80s became fashionable again, which meant that music started adopting more and more synth elements and pop-aesthetics. This is apparent in bands like The Phoenix Foundation. On this album you can clearly see the influence of the 80s even if the overall sound is much more modern. I think it's just interesting how different musical styles are being recycled in approximately 5 year cycles. I think it's now too soon to say what the style of the latter half of 10s would be, but looking back at the first half, it was a time for stadium sized indie pop bands with some psychedelia elements.
The album begins with light and sunny guitars with lots of echo in the song Black Mould. Some sounds remind me of Air, but there's somehow a bit groovier take on this song. Modern Rock features some picked acoustic guitars pointing towards the folk revival of the previous decade, but the echoey vocals and psychedelic synth sounds reveal this as 2010s. The Captain is a proper hit pop song with cheesy synths and a disco beat. I'm reminded of bands like Metronomy while listening to this. Thames Soup brings on the piano and 80s style clean electric guitars. The whole song reminds me of War on Drugs, even though the vocals are raspier and even more 80s. Evolution Did has some space synth sounds and disco beats. The chorus is quite a catchy affair. Inside Me Dead slows things down a bit and there's an overall darker mood in the song reminding me of bands like Slowdive. If this song is dark, the next one is really light. Corale moves forwards playfully with echoey guitars and un-rushed intensity. Supernatural is a surprisingly straightforward pop song with electric guitars that sound very much like the 2010s. Walls brings on the rhythm. There's a groovy bass line and some interesting unconventional drumming in the song while the melodies are created by strange space synth sounds, echoey guitars and airy vocals. Morning Riff is a nice psychedelic song that almost reminds me of progressive rock, yet there's something very heavy about the riffs as well. Sideways Glance is another example of a modern indie pop song with very classy instrumentation and production. The album ends with the song Friendly Society. This song has a staggering length of almost 18 minutes. And even in that 18 minutes it feels like the song never properly starts. It's just a hypnotic soundscape filled with interesting noises.
The Phoenix Foundation seems to have pretty cool music videos. I don't think I've seen too many of them, but it looks like they've really put some effort in the visual side of the band. The music video for The Captain features a set of aluminium balloons that travel through a Chinese super modern city in the dark. I don't know if there's much of a storyline in this song, but it looks really cool and cinematic. In the ending the set of balloons travel to the sunrise.
The Phoenix Foundation is one of those bands that I like a lot in theory, but I find that I don't actually listen to them that often. I don't know why. Perhaps it's just difficult to find the right mood for their music even though everything in theory is in place in their music. That's why it's nice to do this blog and sometimes force myself to listen to stuff that I've forgotten I own. Fandango is an excellent album and it's always good to see that I still like it.
Listen to the album on Spotify.
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