FANFARLO – Reservoir

It had been a busy day and I remembered having Fanfarlo’s “Reservoir” in my bag, so driving home it was played full blast for the first time, from the minute I heard it I thought of many bands that it could be a concoction of, all being favourites of mine. The opening track “I’m A Pilot” has a powerful beat which when combined with its ambitious instrumentals compare to Sigur Rós, despite the arrangement not being as together it still works as a great first track for the album. Whilst listening to “Luna” I was reminded of Arcade Fire, the contrast between calm and thunderous verse joined by vast change in tempo work well to create a racy feel to the song. Again the arrangement is not so together yet Fanfarlo’s Swedish singer, Simon Balthazar’s voice allows for this with a pleasantly silky tone that could almost be described as attractive.
“The Walls Are Coming Down” is a favourite track of mine; the chorus holds more of the power that the whole album presents yet has aggression in the drum beat and speed of the organ though the song in no way sounds aggressive in itself, it stays well within the lovely sound of the rest of the album. The more I listen to the album I continue to realise that the lyrics are not necessarily anything to bother yourself about, a lot of the time they seem to tell a story and have that “personal joke” feel about them- to only be understood by a few that are close to the band and simply enjoyed by all others.
Unlike most typical indie-folk albums “Reservoir” doesn’t have the token slow song, this could be seen as a positive thing considering the similarly folky Fleet Foxes seem to have that box ticked, however Fanfarlo’s constant will to play all instruments at once begins to tire after a while. Only when reaching the final song on the album, “Good Morning Midnight” you find the strings ridden calmness you’d hoped for, with no vocals the songs length could have easily been doubled, yet it shows that Simons voice is not the complete strength of Fanfarlo. Having witnessed Mumford and Sons recent success I’m sure this London 5 piece are rubbing their hands together with excitement hoping they’re next, I wouldn’t be surprised if they were.