If “This City” was a “we are all in the gutter, but some of us are looking at the stars” style tribute to New York City, then the new one from Fringe Frontier homes in on an even more specific part of town. “Astor Place” is the scene, the girl leaving is the scenario, and our protagonist is left alone in his apartment with his thoughts, the once familiar objects and furniture surrounding him now lacking context…and the lingering smell of her perfume. This is truly a tale of love and loss and the Lower East Side.
As always, the city itself is an integral character in the tale, and as he wanders through it in a daze, its sights and sounds loom over him. “Why is love so fast, forgetting so slow?” he asks. Why indeed?
The band’s signature low-slung, sonic attitude still drips from the song, but the dynamic is set up by the switch between poised contemplation and paced postulation…the calm and the storm…the off and the on, the graceful interludes and the groovesome drive.
Hey, man, we’ve all been there and been there much more often than we would like. And when you find yourself in that position, that empty room, that sad reflection, you can either wallow in your own self-pity or write a killer song about it all. Thankfully, Fringe Frontier opts for the latter.
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[…] If you are one of those people who revel in the modern trend for music that is polished and precise, autotuned and tinkered into its perfect form, which of course is anything but perfect, then we probably have different reasons for listening to music and certainly vastly different record collections. Give me music that is a bit raw and slightly ragged around the edges, underplayed and unpolished, which hasn’t been dehumanised, which you know would sound the same if you were experiencing it live in a small basement club as it does on record. Give me bands like Fringe Frontier. […]