Garmin Software: Forest Fires

Thursday 29 November 2012

Forest Fires

Forest Fire are a folk-rock band with double-F initials whose first album was, in fact, more highly praised in some quarters at the end of last year than Fleet Foxes' debut.

Forest Fire can just sound simple and sweet, as on the Dylanesque campfire singalong I Make Windows. They have been described as a punk band playing folk songs, and they do indeed have the ramshackle quality of a lo-fi garage unit thrashing and bashing their way through their set. But sometimes they sound as ragged and electric, as fast and loose, as an alt-country quartet, or they can, as on Promise, drone and wail sax-ily like one of your favourite New York (or proto-punk Detroit) bands past or present. There are tuneful grooves as well as moody atmospherics, with electronic textures to supplement the more organic instrumentation. Throughout, Mark Thresher, the one with the Gatling gun social skills, splashes his acquired-taste Wayne Coyne/Neil-ish whine over the songs like so much vinegar. And there is a general air of beat-poet cool and careless articulacy to the lyrics that heightens the impression of the band as quintessential SoHo bohos.