Artist: FOSTER THE PEOPLE
Album: Torches
Label: Columbia/Sony Music
FOSTER THE PEOPLE brings out shine, sparkle, pizzazz and a funny brand of street cred and emo-guy earnestness in their first album. This relatively new Los Angeles, California indie pop-rock band made up of Mark Foster (vocals, keyboards, piano, synthesizers, guitar, programming, percussion), Cubbie Fink (bass and backing vocals) and Mark Pontius (drums, extra percussion) have been making their presence felt across local and international airwaves with Pumped Up Kicks, which went viral in 2010 and catapulted the group to speedy stardom.
Overall, Torches has a style that very lightly glances over various genres. It is melodic and rhythmic but it has a soft, approachable pleasant pace and equally likeable lyrics, backed by lashes of 80s style synthesizing.
Torches is one of those albums that strikes the public oddly – and while we can all argue there is no accounting for taste – the second song, Pumped Up Kicks (which has the oddest lyrics – a shiny happy tune with lyrics that hint about bullets and a pumped up shotgun!) really pales in comparison to a number of tracks.
The third track, Call It What You Want, is far and away stronger in tone and more memorable in lyrics, aided with a disco beat. I Would Do Anything For You is gentle, lightly nostalgic ballad that show promise – that Foster the People are able to go deeper that the shiny-happy-people kind of feel they project through the majority of their songs. I also particularly loved Houdini, with synth lines, an 80s inspired introspective feel, from the croony vocals to the jouncy beat.
It would be interesting to listen to subsequent albums from this band – Foster the People is one of those you have the funny feeling may be about to embark on an interesting musical journey, despite a first album of hits and misses.
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