There’s always the danger that 95% of the music that we blog about falls into one of two descriptions – electro pop, or ‘a little bit Foals-ish’. Please forgive us for this. We are also well aware that there’s a lot of female solo artists featured on here too, but in all honesty, the rate at which these amazing new female solo artists appear is almost factory-like. They too are mostly a little bit electro pop. Meh.
Well this new recommendation, you’ll be pleased to hear, is an electro indie pop outfit that flirts with a Foal-ish twinkle, but thankfully there’s not a talented female in sight. We should go on to suggest there’s still enough interesting additives to have you reading the back of the tin’s label before you digest them. Namely, a particular similarity to the excellent sleeper act of last year, Wave Machines, with their playful, light and intelligent pop songs, all washed thoroughly in a bucket of melody.
We first heard about them back in May when the excellent PR firm, Radar Maker, sent us a couple of tracks around the launch of the London band’s debut single, ‘Curiosity‘, but they finally won us over with their recent live set. If there’s one thing that does the world of good to any new band it’s a couple of decent support slots. We were recently managing a show with Warpaint at the Brighton venue, Digital, and were pleased to see Fiction were playing as support. What followed was an ear-hooking set, which even took me a couple of songs to figure out who the main singer was out of the four-piece, shared as it often is between one of the guitarists and the drummer, who enjoyably plays stood up, as well as hitting the keys!
We discussed our humble approval afterwards and the band handed us a CD to check out, stating that “they’re particularly proud of the B-side, ‘Mars 500′, so please take the time to listen to both tracks“. It begged the question – why wouldn’t they make it the A-side if they’re that proud of it, but no matter, as both tracks are very special and show off the band’s length and breadth well.
The track ‘Big Things‘ jerks around, but not like an irritating fly in the room, more like a graceful, eye-catching butterfly. And the aforementioned ‘Mars 500‘ is an emotional ballad aimed straight at the cerebral cortex. Guitars played high up the neck return on other tracks, with added theatrics and off-kilter vocal harmonies, most of which can be discovered on their Myspace.
They’ve also gained further support slots with the Klaxons shows through November, but even though these attention-grabbing support slot certainly help, its ultimately going to be their fun-for-adults attitude and intelligent songcraft that will keep people listening long afterwards. (MB)
FICTION – BIG THINGS
FICTION – MARS 500
FICTION – PHYLLIS
