Imagine four cars all speeding towards the same crossroads, and none of the vehicles have working brakes. One car is full of rock energy, another pop accessibility, the third raw, indie guitar hooks, and the last one selected narratives from the great American songbook. When the inevitable happens, and they all go careering into each other, rather than the usual screeching of tires and crunching of metal, “18” is the sound that results from the creative carnage.
Fringe Frontier is one of those bands smart enough to be able to find the sweet spot between all those classic sounds yet always keep themselves from becoming beholden to anyone particular genre. As this fantastic fist-in-the-air, foot-on-the-monitor anthem for doomed youth shows, theirs is a world where artists learn from the past and strike out for the future, where the slight familiarity of their sound complements the freshness and originality of their sonic chops. This is a future classic in the making; just give it time to mature and marinate.
I try not to use other bands as reference points if I can, but it has to be said that there is a lot going on here that reminds me of the first time I heard Gin Blossoms all those years ago. This is, in part, because of the slight similarity in their sound, but more because of the sheer quality, accessibility, infectiousness, energy, and deftness of their music.
You may have heard something like it before, but rarely will you have heard it done this well. And that’s the trick, isn’t it?
