Gathered around the television, in varying poses of contemplative casualness, the plaid-shirted, cardigan-wearing Canadians who make up Faunts look better suited for an Urban Outfitters catalog than a press release for Feel. Love. Thinking. Of., the latest album from these Alberta brothers. Riding the wave of revivalist shoegazing, Faunts’ fourth release is an unabashed ode to the 1980s: a medley of richly-layered synths, bubbly guitars, and post-rock reverb that could have been as easily lifted from Cocteau Twins as The Cure, and to equal avail. But like all things retro, Faunts find themselves stuck between nostalgia and total recall, unable to determine the criticality of their appropriation.
Opening with the title track, the epileptically punctuated Feel. Love. Thinking. Of. recalls the monotonous dinge and the dreamy drones of Chapterhouse or Slowdive bringing to life (if only for a moment) an era dispersed into static. Initially, the songs seem timely: not quite relics, and not beyond saving as new life is breathed back into their familiar sonic palette. But as the album progresses, time marked only by the space between tracks, it takes on an airier, more subtle form, before the illusion slowly unravels and the curtain falls to reveal a group of cardigan-wearing Canadians in an Urban Outfitters catalog.
1. Feel. Love. Thinking. Of.
2. Input
3. It Hurts Me All the Time
4. Out on a Limb
5. Lights Are Always On
6. Das Malefitz
7. I Think I’ll Start a Fire
8. Alarmed/Lights
9. So Far Away
10. Explain
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