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When front men, or women, step aside from their group efforts to strike out on their own, I always fear that the effort will be, well, too self-indulgent. Geoffrey O’Connor, of the Crayon Fields, created a record of his own back in 2011, when he broke out a bit from his guitar and moved into the synth pop side of things. Fan Fiction is another trip into the world of danceable beats and narratives that take place or belong in a nightclub.
Nightclub beats may be one thing, but it’s a whole different animal to be able to go back and forth from dance floor to the other parts of your life. While we all like to shake it, I have to have a little bit of substance to accompany my dance tunes and set them apart from all the rest. The general sound on Fan Fiction is interesting—something along the lines of a mix between Cut Copy and the vocal quality reminiscent of Owen Pallett. It’s synth dance pop with 80’s flair; the presence of the electric guitar through the whole thing adds a neat little element that sets it apart from other takes on this genre. However, there really isn’t a whole lot of variety from track to track that add up to something other than a collection of songs that all sound somewhat similar to each other.
Though my main issue with this album is its lone dimension, there are still some pretty fun tracks that you can groove to. Take “Jacqueline” and “Another Time,” for two great examples of this—both of these tunes are dance floor ready. “Jacqueline,” kicks open with some drum machine, synth riffs and what sounds like a hint of crisp guitar riffs. The beat pumps through the song, and the lead vocals take on a quality that resembles the pulsating electronic sounds as he wonders after the title character now that he knows nothing about her. While the song doesn’t really build to anything in the end, it’s no doubt catchy and will have you lamenting “Jacqueline” along with O’Connor and the feminine vocals that join him for the choral hook. Similar in interest is “Another Time,” where the rhythm is picked up and the lyrics twist around in little endless loops of tongue twisters while instrumentation sounds like scattering fragments of synth that go on forever in the background.
Overall though these few really detailed and stick out tracks weren’t enough to pull me into the rest of the album. I was left feeling a little bored with Fan Fiction and longing for a little more substance.
It seems like the year is grinding to a slow halt, as there are fewer and fewer trickles of new tracks coming our way, though I’ll admittedly hope that that’s the end of the year preparations not the musical end of times. Still, I fell in love with a lot of great songs, like a new single from the last Mope Grooves LP, which just came out on 12XU. Also, 12XU adjacent is a new single from Austin’s Quin Galavis, which I was digging too. There was a brand new single from The Gentle Spring, which hopefully got you Field Mice fans excited. Plus, RayRay has been busting his ass on getting coverage out for Levitation this week, with new posts up on Pissed Jeans and Acid Mothers Temple.
