What we have right here is good. Because all I really wanna do right now is hear a beat. It’s funny, because earlier my buddy was coming by and he asked what to bring, and I texted him jokingly saying I need some “beats” because I’ve been sorta-kinda starved for that shit lately. Sometimes I’ll turn on a step sequencer and let it lull me to sleep, but it’s never the same. Anyway, my phone corrected beats to “beets,” and my confused friend stopped off at the farmer’s market for me on his way. Cool guy, right? Beets aren’t exactly beats, and it’s not easy to substitute one for the other, but I was stoked either way, partly because I was trying to be accommodating.
It wasn’t until he left a little while later when I plugged in Flaamingos’ new slice “All I Wanna Do Is Live” and got a little busy, beating my hands against the couch in rhythm and stuff. Vocalist Jerry Narrows has a nice thick baritone that, in a revisitation of post-punk groups (Majical Cloudz?), helps to remove all the unnecessary fluff from their sets and leave austere bass lines and slow waves of Kubrick-level synth strings. This is a pretty good thing, and Flaamingos are doing it well, even though their band name is clearly *ahem* spelled incorrectly (who does that?).
Despite the feeling I get that Flaamingos are young and ambitious and trying to force their ambitiously drab demeanor on me, they manage to make “All I Wanna Do” a good song by texturizing it in the right places, such as at the very end, where they allow the string part to drag ever so slightly. It isn’t too busy, and it’s not too unnecessarily bleak to the point that I would rather just die than listen to a song about wanting to die. I love dark, depressing music a little more than most, but it’s important for people to realize that getting carried away with the drab-ness can wear a song thin, to the point where it’s possible to see straight through it. Narrows and guitarist Daniel Koontz, however, have made me excited to hear their upcoming album, which is out August 27 on Felte. And kudos for “wanna” becoming a real word now. Like “thru” in all those Spiderman comics.
• Flaamingos: www.flaamingos-music.tumblr.com
• Felte Records: http://www.feltesounds.com
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