On third album Inflorescent, Friendly Fires mark their return with their most danceable (and most mindless) album yet.
In an interview with NME, Friendly Fires teased all sorts of cryptic clues about their third album. Frontman Ed Macfarlane said they had no intention of releasing another pop album like 2011’s Pala, which was the closest you could get to listening to a boy band while still remaining indie. He mentioned new tracks that were “long and expansive and drawn-out,” each around eight minutes long, and said he wanted to write something “a bit more psychedelic.” It sounded like he was describing a cross between LCD Soundsystem and Tame Impala, not the simple and accessible act whose early single “On Board” was used for a Wii Fit commercial, but he assured that the album would be released under the name “Friendly Fires” no matter the stylistic changes.
Except that interview was from way back in 2012, and Friendly Fires third album Inflorescent is nothing like Macfarlane described seven years ago. There’s nothing over five minutes long, and it’s much more influenced by house, 90s dance, and 80s glitz than anything psychedelic. Your response to that sentence may be “another one?” given the recent musical landscape, and the album occasionally does show the pitfalls that come with an eight-year absence. That said, each track on Inflorescent is a banger that could fill up a dancefloor.
The pitfall of most dance music is that it’s fairly mindless, and Inflorescent is no exception. No fewer than three songs on the album use “ba da ba” scatting in lieu of actual words. There’s a track called “Lack of Love” right after one called “Love like Waves.” Choruses have lyrics like “let’s kiss and rewind”(“Kiss and Rewind”) and “go in for the kiss, now it’s almost midnight” (“Almost Midnight”). The opening track “Can’t Wait Forever” even has Macfarlane whispering “shake your body now.” This isn’t too surprising, given that Pala had a song that was literally about a flight to Hawaii and their self-titled album’s tracklist had both “Lovesick” and “Ex-Lover.” Friendly Fires have always been more about fun than profundity.
With this in mind, whatever Inflorescent lacks in depth, it more than makes up for with its beats, melodies, and hooks. You have great combinations of all three of these on the album’s shameless pop tracks like “Silhouettes,” which is replete with 80s-era flair like laser noises, and the Eurodance-inspired “Lack of Love.” Digging further into nostalgia, the chorus of “Sleeptalking” features a keyboard that sounds like it was purchased from Radio Shack in the 90s, and fellow electronic band Disclosure contribute to the dynamic single “Heaven Let Me In,” whose melody sounds ripped from an old SNES or Sega Genesis game. Moving away from past decades, “Almost Midnight” is pure house, complete with a rapidly pulsating beat, and the arpeggiating melody of closing track “Run the Wild Flowers” ends the album with a bang. It’s not all about instrumentals either, as both “Kiss and Rewind” and “Love Like Waves” rely heavily on Macfarlane’s vocals, and prove the group still has their boy band touches. Friendly Fires have made music you could dance to before, but Inflorescent is a full-on foray into electronic dance music itself.
As sharp as the songwriting on Inflorescent is, it feels slightly less fresh given the current number of competing nu-disco and synthpop acts. When Friendly Fires released their self-titled debut in 2008, electronic-influenced indie was less ubiquitous. It was still a great year for indietronica, giving us Empire of the Sun’s Walking on a Dream, Cut Copy’s In Ghost Colours, and Metronomy’s Nights Out, but this is when synthesizers were still a novelty and “new rave” was still a thing. In the eight years since Pala, there’s been an explosion in this style, meaning it’s tougher to hear the synthesized horns of “Offline” without thinking of Capital Cities and their 2013 hit “Safe and Sound.” “Lack of Love” is still a standout on Inflorescent, but its synthesizers and bongos echo Cut Copy’s 2013 album Free Your Mind as much as they do the 90s. Holy Ghost!, Hot Chip, and Two Door Cinema Club have all released dance-infused indie albums this year – with more to come from !!!, Bag Raiders, and Metronomy – so Inflorescent shines a little less brightly in the crowded field of 2019.
If your goal is to pack a dance floor, Inflorescent would be a good bet. Each track’s beat makes it hard to sit still listening to the album, and only the milder “Cry Wolf” is an outlier here. Taken one a time, each song can stand on its own, and you’ll find the prominent melodies that weave synthesizer notes with Macfarlane’s powerful voice easily stuck in your head. Taken all together, the album can sometimes overwhelm and blur. Inflorescent and the return of Friendly Fires are best appreciated when remembering that it’s about losing your inhibitions, not grand ambitions.
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