Opposites attract, or so they say. And if you want proof of such a process at work, then you could do a lot worse than give Fierce Friend’s latest single a spin. “Blood Red Hills” isn’t just the sound of opposites attracting; it is the sound of them melting into each other, merging, and mixing in very artistic and intimate ways. (Get a room!)
But that is exactly how it should be; it is how new music is made, higher sonic standards are set, and new genres are birthed. So if the song starts with choppy, quirky, indie riffs, it is soon soaked in hazy Beach Boys harmonies, then used to explore guitar lines that, whilst not intense enough to be shoegaze or serene enough to be dream-pop, are both big and clever and thoroughly unique.
And for every piece of angular analog, there is an equal amount of synthy sonic softening the edges, and for every intense swathe of wall-of-noise riffing, there is a slice of alt-pop strangeness to balance it out. It’s energetic to the point of euphoric, lovely and lysergic, trippy and infectious, woozy and wonderful; it’s disarming and fractured sounds the perfect vehicle for a song about the love and trust in a relationship being eroded over time.
Ornate and odd (in a brilliant way), sophisticated and shimmering, it seems to find a collision point between pop, rock, and indie that no one has yet capitalized on. Well, someone has to get there first, I guess.
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