In the fall of 2006 I needed some happy. It was a pretty dark time in our lives. But it was also a great time for music. Especially Scottish Rock.
Just when I needed it most, I found the debut import by The Fratellis, a glam/cabaret/britpop trio that were none of them brothers but had adopted the drummer’s previously unknown last name as their individual and band moniker.
I don’t usually spent upwards of $25 for one cd. But, after hearing some of the tracks through someone on Soulseek, I ran out and got the album asap.
That album was….
The Fratellis – Costello Music – 2006
With it’s backbeat Oompa horns and it’s dirty glam pop sound, “Henrietta”, the first track off Costello Music, explodes with such a pied piper fury that I can’t help but think be reminded of the Violent Femmes debut. No, it doesn’t sound ANYTHING like that record but the busker aesthetic is there on both records. Like these songs were hewn on the corners of Scotland and recreated in the studio with wild and excited abandon.
You know the second track, “Flathead” because it was the iPod commercial song for a while. And it popped up in weird commercials like Safeway out here in LA. But that doesn’t diminish it’s hummability. You WANT to follow the top hat waring, vagrant foppishness of Jon Fratelli with a chorus of “ba da bop bop badadadada”s as we shuffle and skip our way through the streets and into the pubs.
“Cuntry Boys & Girls” could have fallen off a Libertines record if it wasn’t so…happy. “Whistle for the Choir” proves that Jon Lawler (Jon Fratelli) has a way with melody as well as a turn of phrase.
The album’s biggest hit doesn’t come until almost halfway through the CD and it’s the big, driving glam beat alley rocker “Chelsea Dagger”. It’s a worthy hit song. It’s got everything: Random shouts. Tricky rhymes. Nonsense (do-do-do-dododo-do-do-doo-doo….) that would make The Beatles proud. It’s easily one of my favorite tracks of the decade.
“For the Girl” changes the nonsense to “La la”s and is still a hoot. In fact, it helps cement the fact that Costello Music is a great party album. The first half, up to this point could rev up a rave and keep everyone dancing.
The second half of the album takes a slightly different turn starting with “Doginabag” which is a little darker, less fun for the sake of fun. It’s not a failure by any stretch and it comes at the perfect time. An entire album of this might wear patience. But after 20 minutes of La Las and Doo-doos, it’s a welcome change.
“Creeping up the Backstairs” owes its chord progression to (of all things) Dead Kennedys’ Moral Majority but, don’t worry, you’re safe. The boys keep that sing-a-long ditty aesthetic alive and well.
The rest of the album is just as good. In fact, it never lets up in it’s craft and the stories eaved and characters described.
After 20 or so listens you may think you never want to hear Costello Music again, but that’s fine. I can’t think of many albums I want to listen to a second time.
Grade A
A Side: Chelsea Dagger, Henrietta, Flathead
BlindSide: Cuntry Boys & Girls, For the Girl, Whistle for the Choir
Downside: None, really. It’s all fun.
So, you can imagine just how excited I was to buy the follow up album. I didn’t waste any time. I knew it was coming out that morning and I fired up the iPod Touch, turned on the Wi-Fi and bought it immediately….
The Fratellis – Here We Stand – 2008
Just about every bit of fun in the foggy streets the band laid out on the previous album was tossed out in favor of trying to emulate, well, Arctic Monkeys. That shouldn’t be bad, right? I mean, on the first album they were apeing The Libertines, right? But on that first album Lawler and crew was taking their cue from those turn of the century britpoppers and making it their own. The opening track, “My Friend John” could be mistaken for the Monkeys. And not “Whatever People Say i Am…” Arctic Monkeys. “Favourite Worst Nightmare” Arctic Monkeys.
There seems to be, especially on “A Heady Tale” a concentrated effort to create a bigger sound. A stadium sound. But, it doesn’t sound like The Fratellis anymore. It’s anonymous. And when they do try to get back to their sound on “Shameless”, it sounds tired.
There are good songs on this record, but it doesn’t have the explosive fire of the first. It’s a sophomore album slumping along. The hits just sound too much like other bands. Look Out Sunshine is really steeped in The Beatles more than ever before and Mistress Mabel….what can be said? It’s catchy and fun and toe-tappy but it also calls to mind George Michaels’ “Faith” as written by Green Day’s side project, Foxboro Hot Tubs. Who, themselves, were ripping on a particular late 60s swinging mod rock sound. To sound like a second rate version of a made up band paying homage to a style…this is not the Fratellis I fell in love with on the first album.
The entire record can be summed up for me by the track, ‘Tell me a Lie”, which is so distracted by being a mini-britpop rock opera that it never realizes that these guys aren’t up to the task. Trying to cram these different styles and tempos into a 3.5 pop song written by street buskers (who seem to also be trying to hard to sound like the White Stripes) the boys only come up short. And unfocused. Which is the sum total of the whole record.
The album really rights it’s listing self with the double shots of “Acid Jazz Singer” & “Lupe Brown” which are close as we’re gonna get to the Fratellis we fell in love with.
Toward the end of Here We Stand we get possibly the only track that really succeeds in trying to take Lawler’s songs to a new place. “Milk & Money” which opens with a melancholy piano which takes it’s lead from Kander & Ebb, picks itself up and really rocks out a second half of frenetic instrumentation.
Here We Stand is not a total failure. It’s confused. It doesn’t reach out and grab the listener the way Costello Music did, but is it worthy attempt at a second record? Sure. Why not. I don’t hate it. But I will only cherry pick the songs I like and dump the rest.
Grade B-
A Side: Mistress Mabel, Acid Jazz Singer, Lupe Brown
BlindSide: Baby Doll, Look Out Sunshine, Milk & Money
DownSide: Tell Me A Lie
