Firekites
The Bowery

Firekites are, if you like, a sort of supergroup, inasmuch as its members can be also be found playing in groups such as The Instant, Pivot and The Herd, or with everybody’s mum’s favourite nice guy, Josh Pyke.

So they’re not nobodies, then, which might account for their sudden appearance, apparently from nowhere, with a bunch of high-profile support slots (Iron & Wine, Smog, Built To Spill and The Sea and Cake) and a full-length album on Spunk.

Said album, The Bowery, is a bloodless collection of polite folk/pop/rock tunes made with the basic ingredients of guitar, violin, boy/girl vocals and the odd electronic flourish here and there. Starting with the vaguely smug ‘Last Ships’, The Bowery spends the next 40 or so minutes revelling in its own mediocrity, and reveals an obsession with handclaps, half-whispered vocals and samey, acoustic guitar melodies.

Too much of The Bowery sounds almost identical to the track that came before it; every song seems content to plod along at the same painfully laconic pace. Sure, mellowness isn’t a sin in and of itself, but tracks like ‘Mirror Miracle’ or ‘Autumn Story’ lack the melodic flair or affecting prettiness of Rand & Holland or Kid Cornered.

While the album’s production is pleasantly warm (it was “famously” recorded in an abandoned coffee house in the band’s hometown of Newcastle), it’s also disappointingly flat. It’s a shame because songs like ‘Another State’ or ‘By Night’ could’ve been salvaged by a more dynamic mix.

Writing off an album that people have seemingly put so much into, always seems a little cruel, but the folks in Firekites should perhaps stick to their other bands, because there’s nothing about The Bowery that recommends it.

by Adam D Mills