Screens

Chronique

On Staring at the X, Forest Fire attempted to put as much musical distance as possible between themselves and their folky beginnings by trying out as many sounds as possible. While they still like changing things up, on Screens they sound more like a band with a guiding aesthetic than quick-change artists. Expanding and refining on the best parts of Staring at the X, these songs have one foot in classic New York indie and the other in the synth-driven pop of the 2010s. Tracks like "Yellow Roses" and "Passengers" mix airy keyboards with a satisfyingly hefty rhythm section that evokes the Velvet Underground and Luna (and it doesn't hurt that Mark Thresher's voice has a Dean Wareham-like whispery reediness to it, either). However, Forest Fire leaven the blase cool of these influences with a light-hearted restraint that keeps them from sounding too slavishly indebted to what came before; on "Cold Kind," Thresher's wry delivery warms up the Suicide-like drum pattern by a few degrees. It's also worth noting that the album's highlights have little in common with each other except their strength. "Waiting in the Night" opens the album with cheerful, anticipatory pop that welcomes all possibilities; the 11-minute workout "Annie" nods in the general direction of Krautrock but lets a mammoth guitar solo cut through its loping groove like a riptide, and "Alone with the Wires" strikes a bittersweet middle ground between Leonard Cohen and Deerhunter. Screens is Forest Fire's most cohesive work yet, but it also allows them plenty of room to explore their experimental and pop leanings.
© Heather Phares /TiVo