Fat Shadow – Foot Of Love (Houseplant)
Fat Shadow is the latest project from former Richmonders Jeff Grant and Erin Tobey, who played together in Pink Razors and separately in Stop It!! and Abe Froman, among others. Now based in Bloomington, Indiana, they’ve joined with vocalist Daun Fields and guitarist Chris Mott to make the most overtly pop-based music of their career thus far.
Fat Shadow – Foot Of Love (Houseplant)
Fat Shadow is the latest project from former Richmonders Jeff Grant and Erin Tobey, who played together in Pink Razors and separately in Stop It!! and Abe Froman, among others. Now based in Bloomington, Indiana, they’ve joined with vocalist Daun Fields and guitarist Chris Mott to make the most overtly pop-based music of their career thus far.
Fields’s vocals are the most immediately striking element of Fat Shadow’s music–while not overproduced by any means, her voice nonetheless has a polished quality that is impressive by virtue of its range and command of the complex vocal melodies on display here. Mott’s guitar playing also displays an impressive melodic command at times, though more often, he prefers to crank the distortion and allow the propulsive rhythm section of Tobey (bass) and Grant (drums) to carry him through the frequently uptempo tunes found here.
Those who come to Fat Shadow expecting the pop-punk of Grant and Tobey’s previous band may not be disappointed, but they may be surprised by the still driving, still melodic, but not necessarily punk sound Fat Shadow displays on Foot Of Love. It’s far more accurate to call this band indie rock rather than pop-punk, but they sound less like today’s indie scene than that of a decade ago, before electro-pop and soft rock’s influences greatly diminished the role of loud guitars in the sound of indie rock. Fat Shadow are but one of quite a few underground bands currently reviving this sound, which I consider a very welcome development. There are elements of excellent bygone bands like Velocity Girl, Helium, and (the recently reunited) Archers Of Loaf present on this album, but other more unusual influences also make their appearance, as on the echoing, a capella croons that open “Number,” or the Sonic Youth-ish stretched-out guitar arpeggios that make up “Haven”‘s extended coda.
Fat Shadow’s Foot Of Love hits a particular sweet spot; it is both catchy and powerful, mixing a driving rhythm section and distorted guitars with excellent vocal melodies. It’s the perfect combination of polished pop and grimy rock n’ roll noise, and should bring a smile to the face of anyone who still takes pleasure in the sound of a great band playing their hearts out. If that’s you, make sure you don’t miss out on this one.
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Fat Shadow will be appearing on Tuesday, August 16 at Sprout (1 N. Morris St.) with Big Soda, Fire Bison, and Greetings. The show starts at 10 PM.
