If Form Affinity were going to lay out a sonic stall that shows their extreme sonic scope and scale, they couldn’t have picked a better example than with the album opener “Goodbye, Columbus.” Moving from delicate, ambient folk and gossamer vocals to intense walls of scratchy shoegazery and screamo voice, not once but several times across its three minutes, tells you everything you need to know about the scope and dynamic of the band. Not to mention their views on conformity and the listener’s comfort zones.
“Girls Named Kennedy” also wanders between such extremes, but rather than doing so in such a joyously jarring way, it transitions in more gradual sonic steps, like a dreamy indie sound that constantly implodes and then finds more stable footing to regain a sense of melody after the mayhem.
And then you have songs like “Herner Werzog” (sic), which for the most part wanders more ambient pathways, orchestral melodies and folky vibes, spoken word and skittering, spacious drums and just a hint of the madness of those screamed and demented roars thrown into even starker contrast by the heavenly vocal harmonies that precede it.
“Market Street,” which rounds things off, plays, for the most part, with music made at the dream-pop/shoegaze divide, a more balanced yet still slightly subversive way to sign off.
What I love about Form Affinity is that it is clear they know how to make gorgeous melody and seductive sonics, and yet occasionally, and very deliberately, drive a banshee vocal wail or an incendiary guitar riff through the heart of their creation, like someone throwing a can of paint over the finest watercolor. Such an act of sonic sabotage is fantastic; it says we know what sort of thing makes an obvious connection with the audience, but who in their right mind wants to be obvious? Where, after all, is the fun in that?
Give the audience what they want, what they expect? No thanks!
