Impulse buys don’t always work out. Foster the People was featured for as an iTunes free download. I’d heard the band was burning up the road getting seen and heard. I listened to “Helena Beat” for about a minute and bought the entire Torches album.
On top of the unsettling feeling of not being sure for a little while whether the singer was male or female or something in between the overall sound is too light and too inconsistent.
Released May 23, Torches has all the signs of drool-worthy goodness; fun cover art, unafraid to use weird instruments and even more strange rhythm breaks. But I couldn’t shake the feeling they were trying too hard to achieve something that, as of now, is beyond them. The importance of being earnest is not to come across as too earnest.
Someone in this band (Mark Foster) likes to tell stories and’s good at it. It’s easy to gain more respect for the band just reading the lyrics. (Perhaps only reading the lyrics?)
“Pumped Up Kicks” is, by increment, the best tune on the CD. It may be coincidence that this song seems to have had the simplest recording history – recorded, mixed, produced and performed by Mark Foster. Just has a nice lazy beat throughout telling the tale of a modern day teenage cowboy with revenge on his mind. Tells those with the pumped up kicks “you better run, better run, faster than my bullet.” It’s the most pure sound. There’s whistling.
There’s whistling?
That’s followed by the mess of “Call It What You Want.” Too many styles trying to do too little. Seems like it might be a dance tune, a nice little keyboard riff, some annoying beeps in the background which begin to take on too much earspace. Then it opens in a chorus of voices and the crack in the wall of sound causes the whole thing to crumble. I DID still find myself bobbing my head a little, as I did on several others – but I had long since tuned out of caring about the song.
Still, it ends with wise words:
If I don’t conform to what you were born into then you run the other way. / You say, ‘Now what’s your style and who do you listen to?’ Who cares? / Well that rat race ladder-climbing fake-face smile’s got nothing on me.”
“Don’t Stop” starts promising but then buries itself under layers – and those incessant beeps, as if their robot overlord was in the studio having a fit. I honestly had trouble getting past it and chipmunk giggling in the background just, obviously (should’ve been obvious) is unnecessary for the muse in music.
But I kept on listening and it came back to the voice. Being able to sing means letting those pipes rattle and not clog them with 401 different effects to remind us that it’s not just auto-tune that can kill a buzz with buzz.
“Waste” is Muzak lounge music. “I Would Do Anything For You” is the hackiest slackjaw love song going. “Miss You ” is another highlight, where one sound sticks around long enough to make a pleasant, lasting impact. And the rest of the CD comes to a lazy, shrugging end.
It seems as if we’ve been caught in a Ross changing room. Each song tries on a new jacket, looking for a style it can’t find. And you can smell the desperate hope for a worthy destination without a plan for how to get there.
Foster The People out on tour now. They tackled Coachella (without having released an album) and will hit Lollapalooza in August. I missed my chance when they were in Tempe, Arizona. I’d be curious how they sound live. Tell me.
Official website: FosterThePeople.com – Main members: Mark Foster, Vocals, Guitar and Synth. Mark Pontius, Drums. Cubbie Fink (?), Bass.
Tracks
Helena Beat
Pumped Up Kicks
Call it What You Want
Don’t Stop (Color On The Wall)
Waste
I Would Do Anything For You
Houdini
Life On The Nickel
Miss You
Warrant
Broken Jaw