CD: Speedy Ortiz - Foil Deer | reviews, news & interviews
CD: Speedy Ortiz - Foil Deer
CD: Speedy Ortiz - Foil Deer
A third album worth shouting about from US indie rockers
To let you understand the spontaneous grin that burst across my face when I first heard Foil Deer probably needs a little context: I studied, and now have a job involving, corporate law.
There are are lots of tracks like that on Foil Deer: songs that pay lip service to all the best US bands of the Nineties (I hear snatches of Pavement here, of Veruca Salt and even, on “Puffer”, a little bit of Nine Inch Nails) while at the same time doing their own confident, cohesive thing. And so the woozy, laid-back slacker guitar on “Homonovus” bleeds into “Puffer”, with its industrial-leaning swagger, by way of a discordant punk nightmare of a chorus; and that song’s self-assured “god of the liars” will still let her vulnerabilities show.
But if Foil Deer has a theme it’s of one of taking ownership of yourself and your happiness, cutting out the ones who don’t have your back and refusing to settle for second best – while, at the same time, refusing to take yourself too seriously. Tracks like “Raising The Skate” positively dare you not to sing along, in this case to a no-nonsense refrain of “I’m not bossy, I’m the boss”; and “Swell Content” is proper fingers-in-your-ears-shout-the-world-out stuff. The album’s sweeter moments may be buried under fuzz and distortion, but that’s only ‘cause baby’s as good with a blade as she is a pop hook.
Overleaf: hear "Raising the Skate"
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