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"Adventures In Boredom" F.O.N. |
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Before even listening to a note you're awestruck at what this band can do. "Closed Door," the first track on their adventuresome new album, (a term purposefully left unquoted because there's no real irony there) is unlike anything I've heard in at least eighteen years. It's like your basic black Rock radio track from the days before AM breathed its last breaths, spiked with a Punk urgency that's aided in no small part to an adolescent drummer who's got as many rolls and fills as anyone twice his age and playing experience! And big a drawing card as that might be, it's the overall sound F.O.N. gives off that clutches for the prize. For the most part they back off that usual Rock/Punk hybrid that's popularized the post-alternative craze, though I won't dissuade any seeming remoteness to a handful of those MTV'er types, and stuck more with the guitar rock essentials from an outdated analog society… yet there'll be a tune like "Dagger" and a male fronted No Doubt creeps quickly to mind. Speaking of which, F.O.N.'s one of the few groups that employs two singers, going by Adato and Dodson, though I couldn't' tell which is which, but one's gruffer, the other considerably milder, and both offset yer typically irritable angst, giggle, and whine approach. The tunes are clever and concise, each, save for two of the twelve, logging better than three minutes, and there's a distinction drawn between the many-I can tell right away the difference between "Fragile" and "Morning After," or "Professional Crastination" which is refreshing in an age where two or three hits dominate a record of no real significance. Overall we're dealing with some seven players, each adopting a key role in what amounts to a "big" sound, something not usually associated with the clean stripped down garage stuff. The verses are clear and catchy, the guitars doubled up and dominant, and nothing's left to drown out the rhythmical elements. And the record doesn't fade off and die after seven or eight in-two of the more intense and variant tracks include "The Drought" with its firepower drumming and late percussive break and the hook-filled closer, "Imitation." Hard to imagine this is their fourth record already since having started only in '98… and their drummer would've been all of, what, ten? Think back to the late great Indie Rockers like Therapy? or maybe a VDG type, early Blink 182, and look beyond the usual nature of Rock radio and Pop "sensibility" and discover something unexpected and useful in F.O.N… and for maybe the first time, "Boredom" never felt so exciting. Released by Doc Hollywood Records Review by Vinnie Apicella [va85@columbia.edu] P.O. Box 20252
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