ILM has no thread about Friendly Fires

I know I'm several months late with this, mostly because everything I'd read about them made me think they were some sort of Klaxons meets Late Of The Pier cobblers. Still, the Aeroplane remix of Paris made me listen to the album and... I really like it. It's a bit like the big polished rock record with synths and stomping that I've wanted the Killers or Franz Ferdinand or someone to make for several years. Not 100% convinced by all of it but it's certainly a pleasant surprise.

Presumably I'm not alone in this so, talk about them here.

change thread title

this should be of interest

http://www.mediafire.com/?2ndnywdtqat
― cutty, Tuesday, May 1, 2007 8:12 PM (1 year ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

^^^ FF cover of frankie knuckles your love

Yeah I've heard that, not as keen on it though. There's an obvious reference to Your Love on one song on the album as well (the synth arpeggios, not the bassline). Also is the dude consciously ripping off Shakedown's At Night on one track?

they do sample The Field on 'Paris' right?

Which Field track? Their Wikipedia entry lists Kompakt as an influence so I wouldn't be surprised.

they like techno I guess, I remember the drummer commented on my blog before.

what impresses me is that they produced the majority of the record themselves. sound is huge.

Yeah totally - I love it when things you learn on a thread make you go back and listen to a record in a completely different way. Like, I hadn't even noticed the Kompakt influence but it's really there. I'm not used to 00s indie dance records sounding this expansive. When you listen to the Rapture or Hot Chip the sound is always endearingly ramshackle, and there's a sense of a "hey this is cool noise" approach to electronics.

Where Friendly Fires differ is there's a sense that they really appreciate why certain sounds in techno work the way they do - I'm thinking of the second half of Lovesick in particular, and the whole of Ex Lover. Also those huge pads on Jump In The Pool and Paris sound like they're consciously trying to recreate the "ahhhhhhhhhhh" feeling you get when you hear the lusher Kompakt stuff played on a huge sound system at 5am, except tethered to this tight punk-funk song structure with clattering drums and cowbells and whistles.

On second listen I love it by the way - it helps that they're appropriating from the bits of dance music I like the most. There's a big Prince influence in there as well.

really really like this album. above posts otm about the pads and the big sound. i like the occasional blissy shoegaze guitars too natch

justus kohncke remix of 'paris' is beautiful.

very cool. thanks for this thread. i failed to do any follow-up after the aeroplane remix and likewise wrongly assumed what this group was! i'm impressed.

definitely some dance floor mechanics at work here. upon first listen i also felt there was something very similar in the energy to silent alarm--so learning the first track is epworth made sense.

my other gut reaction was Tom Vek, a pleasant surprise as i always felt his songs were underrated. something in the choruses..

this album is great!

this urine is great!

I saw them live in the summer, they gave a good show, but their singer is a namby-pamby irritating little git. And this fact make most of their songs irritating too.

he just has interesting taste in sweaters

damn i slept on this. sounds like cut copy to me but a little more rock-oriented. the good thing about them is that the songs that don't have huge choruses ("lovesick" for instance) usually have a bunch of other redeeming qualities/good ideas to make up for the fact that not every song can live up to "paris".

btw i think the original paris > aeroplane remix

They're on a par for me, the original Paris has that amazing swell in the final chorus, but the remix is pretty much a cover version and is lovely in it's own way.

I haven't heard the album, but "Paris" is alright and that song from the Wii Fit commercial is good too.

so this is like a pretty good record. thanks ilm!

best thing to come out of St Albans since Photek?

female vocals on their tracks = <3 <3. love this air france remix of "skeleton boy".

^yeah this rmx is great stuff

much like the aeroplane one it's more like a cover though

so i bought this album without hearing it a couple weeks back. i'm now playing it everyday as it really is getting into my head. i'm loving it, as of now, and i hope it continues as it's a nice short album that seems perfect for the start of summer.

Saw them at Leeds festival last year when I was just getting into them and I'm so glad I did as when I got their album it was an instant favourite, listened the hell out of it. Their return to the festival this year should be huge. To me they have more immediacy than Cut Copy. FF impressed me in the first round of hype when they explained in the NME how they were keen on Kompakt's smoother, craft-focussed approach to house music, as opposed to the distorted maximalist blog-house that seemed everywhere at the time.

of course there is also this:

I should get this, right?

whoa "jump in the pool" is pretty damn sweet :-/

slept on these guys

LOTP still winning

WFANFC also still winning if we're in the same vague ballpark

but well done FF, you are definitely not shit

oh

so these guys frontloaded their best track

:-/

"on board" is quite good i guess

really really like this cd, best brit debut in a few years imo (aside from los campesinos of course)

Nick I'm pretty sure it's on Spotify. You'd definitely like 'Strobe', which is a bit like how Bloc Party might have sounded if they'd taken the softer side of Silent Alarm in a dance rock direction, instead of the awful route they actually took.

Nick doesn't believe in Spotify

"Ex Lover" is pretty good. Basically there's a good opener, a good closer, and smatterings of good stuff in between. Tends to work...

I listened to Paris on, ahem, last.fm, but then it tried to play me Passion Pit or something afterwards, rather than another FF track. I enjoyed it, and it's like £4 on Amazon at the moment, so I think I'll get it, and another Necks album.

Louis, do you like The Necks?

Don't know them at all. Would your discerning (ex-)critic's brain deem it suitable LJ fodder?

Fuck me.

http://www.stylusmagazine.com/reviews/the-necks/drive-by.htm

ooooooh

I've just ordered Chemist and Hanging Gardens on CD.

will check

you're really promoting Drive By atm

what the fuck do the necks have to do with friendly fires, man

Just that I put Chemist in my shopping basket the other day and then put FF in, and it struck me that Louis would love The Necks.

I think the end-of-decade AOTD thinking is propelling me towards Drive By. It's an awesome piece of work.

so this has become my summer album this year. i actually think after around 25 listens that this album gets better towards the end. my very favorite song is the innocent love song that is "Photobooth," which is so good i hope it becomes their next single. also a huge highlight is "Lovesick" which reminds me of Studio. you also have the excellent single "Skeleton Boy" which is better than the great "Paris" single. end it with "Ex Lover" and under 38 minutes, is almost perfect.

new single is dope imo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NK0H3jEwUYc

Crikey, it really was nearly 2yrs ago.

http://www.theluminaire.co.uk/live-music/November/2007/651/AIR%20TRAFFIC%20+%20FRIENDLY%20FIRES%20+%20LIGHTSPEED%20CHAMPION

supporting Lightspeed Champion and ahem Air Traffic, no less! bless 'em.

Is their Bugged Out mix any good? http://www.roughtrade.com/site/shop_detail.lasso?search_type=sku&sku=330551

The track with Azari & III is great. Tracklist looks pretty tasty overall.

it is good. i mean, it doesn't exactly subvert any assumptions of what a mix by FF would sound like, but it's pleasant enough. I hadn't heard Tensnake's Coma Cat until I heard this mix.

I like it

So here's this, then

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9N9yLr2VmAY

maybe they'll make the record that cut copy was supposed to make

Cut Copy suck

http://fourfour.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451b8c369e2014e8620565e970d-800wi

ho ho

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/e/e5/FriendlyFiresPala.jpg

Pala is the second album from Friendly Fires. It will be released on May 24, 2011 on XL Recordings.

Track listing

1. "Live Those Days Tonight" 5:02
2. "Blue Cassette" 3:32
3. "Running Away" 3:02
4. "Hawaiian Air" 4:17
5. "Hurting" 5:03
6. "Pala" 4:01
7. "Show Me Lights" 3:36
8. "True Love" 3:15
9. "Pull Me Back To Earth" 3:30
10. "Chimes" 4:37
11. "Helpless" 4:30

i actually really like the single and am secretly crossing my fingers that this will be substantially better than the cut copy album

This has leaked and its... okay. Not as good as the first album, better than the new Cut Copy. Terrific drums (think there might be a funky influence in there although it's difficult to tell whether that's second or third hand), songwriting a bit meh. They've gone a bit overboard with the 360-degree Kompakty glaze they used on Jump In The Pool and Paris, and now it's over almost everything, to the extent the album's a bit samey. Be interested to find out who produced it.

"(think there might be a funky influence in there although it's difficult to tell whether that's second or third hand)"

not sure what you mean by this, but the drummer has long been into ukg and grime, and djs house-y stuff so it's not exactly a major leap

same as the last one - them and paul epworth xpost

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YtGbNm4pIkY

This has grown on me quite a lot actually, first four or so songs in particular. Wish they'd gone for a bit more diversity of sound though.

maybe they'll make the record that cut copy was supposed to make

By the way, you know that the Holy Ghost! album is really great, right?

i was really excited about the FF album until i heard the first single

i like the holy ghost album, yeah

what j0rdan said, though i do see grower potential

Fantastic performance at Reading yesterday, if the BBC coverage is anything to go by. I'd underestimated how good they are live.

6 days left to watch on iplayer

"Pala" is for me one of the most played records of this decade. Love the drumming, insane amount of hooks and detailed production. Definitely think it is underrated.

the pattern forms album is a nice little surprise. 2/3 friendly fires and jon brooks from the advisory circle.

i saw that mcfarlane was in a new band. Is this the only thing he's done recently other than that Disclosure track a few years ago? Seems like FF are all done and dusted.

I hope not, both their albums hold up really well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMiHXIllrHY

I don't remember them ever sounding this much like Cut Copy but it really works and his voice sounds much better on this

new single, produced by disclosure

https://open.spotify.com/album/1m5zUaXLDZwXzLmwswrPAi

they are still good

Um, hi. This new record is banger after banger after banger and I’ve fallen in love with it on first listen. I think it’s major.

Also a major breath of fresh air via familiar sounds

yeah this is all hits

I had no idea they got back together. Looking forward to hearing this

this is brilliant, the first four tracks feel like an endless night out in the best way

this feels like pretty easily their best album, they've shed a lot of their indie-isms and just made a really good dance-pop album. much nicer production and he's improved a lot as a singer too, less yelpy

Wow, excited to listen to this. The first two albums were easy to compare with other indie-dance albums of that era, but I always thought their approach to rhythm (e.g., the polyrhythms of "Jump in the Pool") made them stand out.

this record is straight up an 80s r&b album

also theyve been listening to todd terje

interested to hear this now, always liked that first record but not quite enough to Follow them

more than anything this sounds like the disco-house revival that feels all over clublife in 2019, which seems odd given how long this seems to have been gestating

I’ve been listening to the record nonstop all weekend, it’s so good! It’s so nice to hear new vocals from Ed. He’s one of my favorite male singers in music today, and he’s never sounded better.

i didn't like this at all. maybe i just wasn't in the right frame of mind to listen to this or i just don't like this direction. i'm a huge fan of those first two albums but think i'm skipping this one. i will give it another go however and see if it appeals to me in the future.

unfriendly fires

this record is straight up an 80s r&b album

― Carisis LaVerted (m bison), Sunday, August 18, 2019 2:07 PM (yesterday) bookmarkflaglink

hello

I must have been in a bad mood this morning as this album did nothing for me. I read this thread at work which encouraged me to give it another go. Sounded glorious on my way home. It feels quite similar in atmosphere to the last Cut Copy album which was really underrated.

i get george michael vibes from it. the first two tracks are the best, i'll persevere with the rest

I can imagine the strobelight intensity here requiring a certain mindset to approach but it is so gloriously blissful, it gets better each time I play it

This is an odd one, all the right sounds in all the right places, straight out of the Tim Sweeney toolbox, but sort of emotionally enervating at the same time. It feels like looking through someone else's holiday photos.

Better songwriting would probably help.

Also I dunno it feels like the kind of record that should have come out in 2013 but now there's been such a glut of stuff in this general vein that it feels both tired and trying too hard at the same time.

Did the people saying they don't like it much like Pala?

Pala had its moments but was mostly pretty dull iirc.

I really liked the debut, wasn't big on Pala, but love this