Album Review: Fountaineer ‘Greater City, Greater Love’
Fans of crescendos, baritone vocals and relatable emotions should be very excited because Bendigo boy’s Fountineer have released their debut album ‘Greater City, Greater Love’ and it is absolutely chock full of all three.
Fountineer hit it out of the park straight up with Sirens (Part 1 & 2). It’s an epic for sure—complete with a death march drum beat set to lyrics pontificating about deciding what kind of person to be before ramping up to a theatrical key change. It’s a familiar trope for indie rock but nonetheless it still elicits the same response of fist pumping euphoria.
The Cricketers gets things moving a little more—bursting open with a humdinger of a riff that hides the otherwise depressing lyrical content about not being on the same page as someone that cares for you. Swirling around the main ideas as always, this background earworm of a hook lending to the latter half of the song’s frenetic energy.
It’s not until Wide Awake Library that things slow down for a bit as delicate, almost cutsey, picked guitars surround lead singer Anthony White’s distorted vocals. It doesn’t last long before the crash symbols make an appearance, yet strangely enough White’s vocals remain underwater, getting somewhat lost in the crashing waves of the climax.
Popping up towards the end of the album, Grand Old Flags has the potential to become the sensitive indie rock song of the Summer. It truly hits every checkpoint; heelkicking drum line, a riff just piercing enough to get stuck in your head all day, and vocals that confidently yell of a sense of sun drenched nostalgia. Expect to hear it ringing out over Instagram videos everywhere ’round December.
For an album so hell bent on being the musical equivalent of Matthew McConehey thumping his chest in Wolf of Wall Street, ‘Greater City, Greater Love’ ends on a pretty sweet note. I Will Become/Hinges On starts off with a simple piano tune cradling White’s deep baritone and after that the track just kinda does its own thing. There’s no forced climax, just tune steadily building its own anticipation to the ultimate apex before ecstatically collapsing under its own weight. It’s an awesomely authentic song and a ripper way to round off an album.
Following in the emotionally heavy footsteps of The National, (tour mates) Gang Of Youths and Brisbane’s own Mosman Alder, Fountineer have created an album that you would be just as happy crying do as you would be dancing madly. While it might come across a smidge homogenous, it certainly spells bright things for Fountaineer in the future.
Read our interview with Fountaineer HERE.
