Artist: Fast Romantics
Album: Afterlife Blues
Released: October 8, 2013
Label: Pipe & Hat
Fast Romantics emerged on the backstreets of Candadian indie-rock five years ago in Calgary, Alberta. The original trio comprised the musical talents of lead singer Matthew Angus, bassist Jeffery Lewis, and drummer Alan Reain later adding Shane O’ Keefe and Lauren Heron. Since forming in 2008, Fast Romantics have been on a soul-searching, music-making adventure to find a home somewhere on the corner of rock n’ roll and pop. With their second full-length album releasing to the public on October 8th, it is apparent that they have quite confidently found their soulful sound. Afterlife Blues, much like its vividly enchanting cover art, invites listeners to embark on a journey through heartache, stumbling upon love, dying, and then coming back.
The album opens with the richly bittersweet track “Friends”. The track commences with alluring guitar cords guaranteed to immediately enchant you. As the track progresses, full-toned voices, drums, and harmonic chants added to melancholic lyrics, enroot into a pure track of raw soul and wild emotion. A couple of tracks down the road, is the album-titled track “Afterlife Blues” a gently chorus driven song perfect for a late night, dimly lit, coffee house show where you come to some sort of great life realization. Geniously simple guitar chords and honest vocals dominate the song and are occasionally accompanied by flowing background vocals. The end of this track perfectly marks the point in the journey in which you reach the dying stages of heartache.
Following “Afterlife Blues”, comes the electrically sorrow “Take Me Back”. Constant jolts of guitar to the steady cadence of drums begin the track with a sort of irresistible magnetism. As lyrics of wishing for things past fill the air, knots are sure to form and unravel in listeners hearts all in the course of just four minutes and eighteen seconds. The sirenic, “Old Enough” is found as track eight on the album. The soft stringing of a guitar begins the end of the journey that is this track. As the track advances, brighter guitar strings picked beautifully contradicting heavy vocal tones in the telling of an acceptance and hope for future joy. The tracks cessation marks the end of stumbling upon love and gently begins the process of returning from heartache concluding in a breath-taking album full of soul and story.
Reviewed by Ariana Hernandez
By David Cavazos Music always comes in many forms. There are plenty of people who think mastery over theory and their instruments produce the highest quality. Then there’s the counter argument that it doesn’t matter how complicated the tune is as long as the emotion and message is conveyed. This enlightenment vs romance argument in music over time has both produced great works as well as burned many bridges. Although one great work produced […]
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