REVIEW: Dream Wife - Dream Wife

Phillipe Roberts

Cursed with admiration for the well-written hook and burdened by a crippling obsession with separating themselves from the pack (via varying degrees of over-intellectualized "experimentation"), indie rock bands have always found themselves performing a high-wire act. This writer included, the critical establishment often pushes a canon of bands that, to their ears, have managed to strike some idyllic balance between opposing forces, some burying that undeniable knack for pop beneath clouds of noise, and others slicing catchy riffs into irregular time signatures. Ironically, the fear of appearing to seek popularity through instantly recognizable songcraft has squeezed the life out of many a blossoming performer.

But Dream Wife don’t have time for pop pessimism, yours or mine. They’ve been too busy cramming wave after wave of stadium-sized, fist-pumping melodic goodness into every square inch of their long-awaited debut. In a sense, the London-based trio evolved in reverse. Starting as an art school project to create a fake girl band, the three women discovered an unexpected chemistry and ditched highbrow artifice in favor of near-religious dedication to hook-fueled rock and roll. Their first proper LP is 35 minutes of mania, a commanding collection of pop-punk tracks bristling with riotous energy. Dream Wife don’t waste time hiding their melodic gifts, and why should they when the results are so damn fun?

From beginning to end, the band operates within a well-defined universe, rallying around linear, palm-muted riffs, strutting basslines, and yelping choruses determined to pull wallflowers like you onto the dance floor. Dream Wife know their lane and stick to it, but they find enough wiggle room within that paradigm to keep you thoroughly entertained. Opener “Let’s Make Out” leaps right into the fray with rabid abandon—a few reverb-drenched “oohs” and you’re slammed into a throat-shredding chorus, with all credit to vocalist Rakel Mjöll for bringing the bravado in spades. Under her thumb, potential slow-burners like “Love Without Reason” turn into theatrical blowouts that call to mind The Killers at their arena-conquering best, and scuzzy dirtbombs like “Hey Heartbreaker” take on a winking mischief courtesy of her bratty, hiccuping delivery.

The raw power behind Mjöll’s vocals finds a worthy foil in guitarist Alice Go, who howls alongside her partner in crime with a roaring tone that fills in the spaces with a satisfying squeal. Center stage on the album’s best track, “Fire,” is hers entirely. Alternating between seasick bends that ramp up the distortion and metronomic pulsations, the riff explodes off the drums in a flash of garage-rock brilliance.

For every minor moment on the album that seems to skew towards the formulaic (the penultimate track, “Spend the Night,” doesn’t quite break free of its clichés), Dream Wife turn in five massive hooks that muscle their way into the back of your mind with ease. Most of these hew close to the classic rock antics that make up the majority of the record, making final track “F.U.U.” all the more mysterious. A completely blasted, fuzz-fried banger featuring the chant “I’m gonna fuck you up / I’m gonna cut you up / I’m gonna fuck you up,” the track skips along with a hip-hop groove, an update of “Kool Thing” with a modern swing. It’s like nothing else on the record, but there’s a real joy to how Dream Wife turns the tables on you one last time. A sugar-coated fist to the brain, this album hurts too good to ignore.

REVIEW: Fufanu - Sports

Laura Kerry

Thinking about Iceland’s music, ethereal, atmospheric musicians such as Björk and Sigur Rós most readily come to mind. But Reykjavík-based Fufanu are not like them.

More subterranean than spacey, Fufanu makes experimental post-punk that radiates with anxious energy. Since their first release, 2015’s EP Adjust to the Light, the band has been fine-tuning their electronic rock sound, moving from a techno-infused duo, Fufanu Captain, to a grittier one that borrows its dark impulses from new wave and krautrock. The latest LP, Sports, the band’s second full-length, builds on these impulses in a crisp album that is gripping from the first thumping bass notes on the opening track to the last fadeout of guitar feedback on the final song.

Propelling Sports is a tension built by two competing strains: Fufanu’s mastery of both the hook and the wicked surprise. In “Tokyo,” after the band establishes a pattern structured around an even bass line, swirling guitars, and a straightforward melody, the guitar jumps unexpectedly, twisting a catchy line into something strangely ominous. The title song, about desire in the form of a metaphor about a child wanting a brownie, similarly moves around dissonance and the stabbing regularity of its rhythmic instruments, as do “Syncing In,” “Liability,” and “White Pebbles.” Some songs are all tension, though—for example, “Bad Rockets,” with its mounting layers of ringing guitar, dispassionate vocals, and increasingly rough voices, and “Gone for More,” with its urgent rhythm. Others are all dance, such as “Just Me,” a song about social anxiety couched in an infectious chorus and synth riffs.

Evading both the urgent dance feel and the tense dissonance is “Your Fool,” the penultimate track. It begins quietly with soft percussion, warm synth, and vocals that sound gentler and rawer than anywhere else on the album. The song offers a satisfying build as it moves from standing alone on a dance floor to a happy moment outside: “No sense of direction / Just hold me like I’m your fool / We’ll sleep on the back of the new moon.” Right before the end of Sports, it offers a moment of earnest joy that reflects back on the whole album, recalling other emotionally clear moments, such as the six year old coveting a brownie in the first song, the calls to action in “Liability,” different kinds of love described throughout, and several moments of anxiety. It’s one last surprise that Fufanu throws our way—a sincere and pretty song to recast the dark and cool electronica that came before. By the time the implied instruction in the last song’s title, “Restart,” rolls around, the listener wants to follow it.