Fanfarlo - Reservoir

[The idea was that David and I would both review this without having discussed the band too extensively to see how similar our reviews came out.]

General Ratings:

Rating: 9
Breadth of Appeal: 8
Consistency of Quality: 9

RIYL: the Arcade Fire, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Beirut

Further Listening: Corto Maltese, Speedmarket Avenue, Mazarin

Place of Origin: London, England

Mood Tones: An unexpectedly temperate winter day in which the sky is compared to a dome.

Song Highlights: I’m a Pilot, Drowning Men, Harold T. Wilkins or How to Wait for a Very Long Time

Favorite Lyrics:

“If I stay in this room, /
they’ll remember me for my youth.” (from I’m a Pilot)

“We can still afford to not make sense at all.” (from Drowning Men)

“For atoms have gone /
as far as atoms will go. /
Your books write themselves, /
they line up row after row.” (from The Walls Are Coming Down)

Further Thoughts:

I’ve been listening to it regularly for a month now, and I’m increasingly convinced that “Reservoir” is the equal of the Arcade Fire’s “Funeral,” the album it’s most obviously indebted to. There are no heights the height of “Neighborhood #1 (Tunnels)” or “Rebellion (Lies)” here, but there also aren’t the lows of “In the Backseat” or stretches of “Neighborhood #4 (Kettles)” or some of the other slower songs. My choice of song highlights is close to arbitrary, so consistent is the quality of the album. There’s nothing here resembling a bad song, and I would go so far as to venture that there aren’t even any bad moments. I credit no small measure of this to Peter Katis’s production--the man behind the boards on “Boxer,” “Turn on the Bright Lights,” and “Fourteen Autumns and Fifteen Winters,” three of the best-sounding records in recent memory. Those are all rather paranoid, claustrophobic records, though, whereas "Reservoir" is open, generous, and anthemic. This is my favorite record since The National’s “Boxer,” and that’s probably one of my five favorite records of all time.

Fanfarlo played SXSW this weekend, and one hopes that at the very least they’ll come away with some well-placed reviews (In the Arcade Fire, Broken Social Scene, and Tapes ‘n Tapes mold, it’s pretty easy to imagine Pitchfork exploding this band, though, sadly, I can also imagine some asshole reviewer giving it a cursory listen, accusing them of ripping off the RIYL touchstones and moving on). Unless they’re purposely CYHSY-ing it (“Reservoir” is self-released, available on their website and (recently) now Itunes) it’s not hard to imagine those shows and the sheer strength of the album spawning a record or distribution deal, either.

The Downside:

This band has only two flaws so far as I’m concerned. First, their mediocre name, which seems at first goofy, but turns out to be pretentious (it’s a Baudelaire reference). More importantly, Balthazar’s voice is a bit too unflappable. Unlike CYHSY’s Alec Ounsworth (who he most resembles, without the extremes of whining), Win Butler, and Zach Condon, Balthazar doesn’t seem to have a second level to take his voice to, and so he can’t quite sell his choruses the way he should given Fanfarlo’s anthemic sound.

It’s probably worth mentioning too that guitarist Mark West left the band after the album was recorded (none of his other projects seem interesting on brief perusal). Most of Fanfarlo’s songs are built up in many layers on a foundation of simple chord changes, so it’s hard to imagine this having a huge effect on their sound.