Whoa. This is a ripper track. Polished, intricately constructed, compelling and all in under three minutes and thirty seconds. This is Fan Girl with their debut single Small Town and what a piece of music it is.
Amazingly, Small Town has been put together by a band that formed in 2015 by correspondence, with members who were half way across the globe during the bands genesis. The 6 piece finally physically came together in Melbourne, after musos Vincent McIntyre and Jack Wood contacted singer Noah Harris, while he was off chilling in South Korea. The collaboration has proved to be truly inspired one. Adding another 3 members in Dom Buckham, Luke Thomas and Krish Soorkia to the mix, Fan Girl has created a sound that can ‘literally’ blow your head off and then bring you back down into a tangible realm of feeling and fragility.
Polished, constructed and compelling, Fan Girl do long distance band relationships real well delivering banger of a tune in Small Town.
Full and noisy, while being incredibly tight and intricate, Small Town is a track that sounds like it has come from a band who have playing together for years. Not sure what to expect after the gradually rising initial 10 seconds of reverb, Small Town explodes into a driving bass, crashing symbols and whaling guitar, a wall of sound accompanied by vocal sound and structure that is properly infectious. Noah Harris sounds like a combination of Alex Turner and Tom Yorke, his energetic voice explodes and then descends in to a softness that you would never have expected in your wildest dreams after the songs opening.
After the opening 30 seconds you’re thinking, ‘I like where this is going; and then it just gets better. 38 seconds in and Fan Girl gives you a reason to be excited about their future. An early bridge that quiets down enough to hear Harris and the extent of the range in his voice, which climaxes in some infinitely pleasing falsettos, that precede a gradual build into the songs former energy, that you’ve nearly forgotten about while transfixed in a bridge. It’s all strikingly similar to something you’d hear in a Radiohead track.
One minute and thirty one seconds and we are back on again. Explosion, Small Town kicks in to gear again with the whaling wall of sound that we started with. The bass mixing is perfect, it’s the true driver of the track throughout and mixer James Cecil, of Architecture in Helsinki, must be applauded for not letting it be drowned out in such a full and complex sound. Amazingly there is more of the song to go and that is when you finally realize that this is the shit and it’s good and it’s in your ears. Now in the final minute, a brief, but perfectly arranged guitar solo, in tandem, gives the song a push in to the final refrain of Harris who, like the milkman, delivers in a big way as the song approaches it’s conclusion with all the infectious gusto it opened with.
It is not often that you hear a debut single for a band with this sort of line up arranged so perfectly. Upon listening to this track repetitively you begin to marvel at the writing and structure of the song that allows it ton include so much complexity and diversity in what realistically is two minutes and fifty seconds of music. 6 people are contributing their juice to this piece of music at any given time and it’s not easy for bands to create sounds, and more specifically good ol’ bangin’ noise, as polished and reassuring as this is in it’s infancy. This band brings a maturity, which is the most exciting thing about Small Town and Fan Girl, this being the first gift offering debut single.
Having recorded what is the bulk of an album that is due to be released later in the year, Fan Girl will be playing their hyped first gig in Melbourne at the John Curtin Hotel on May 19. This will be the beginning of what will hopefully turn in to a string of shows and further releases to go along with Small Town, which genuinely has us itching to hear some more of what Fan Girl has to offer. Check these guys out, we have a feeling that they are going places.
