The Fresh & Onlys
Play It Strange
In the Red
The first decade of the 2000s had music veering in every direction with the advent of digital production and more fad genres than you can shake a drumstick at. Still, as titillating as novelty is, sometimes all we crave is the noise of yesteryear.
Cue The Fresh & Onlys. One of many recent acts to forgo the modern in favor of reanimating an earlier era, they’ve attained exposure in under two years for their music’s psychedelic tendencies. Play It Strange continues their cloudy resonance by minimizing production, or at least concealing evidence of any. String and percussion melt into a homogenous sea, and lead vocalist Tim Cohen swirls in his voice almost indistinguishably. But unfortunately, indistinguishable becomes far too big of a key word here, as the album fails to make any kind of unique impact.
The band strays far enough from mainstream rock to find a niche sound, but they exercise it by recycling song structures. The album scouts the same frontier for so long that it feels like an actual road trip — after a while, you just want to curl up in the backseat and take a nap.
Their last full-length, Grey-Eyed Girls, became an underground hit for similar —-fuzzy tunage. But lost is the kick-in-the-pants factor that previously transported them to another era. Play it Strange shows the talent and vision needed for a journey, yet it refuses to travel in new directions.
Sure, the aesthetic can be fetching. The band cavorts between surf and rockabilly in songs like “All Shook Up“ and “Waterfall.” Yet tracks like the classily named “By My Hooker” follow, droning along and repeating the same hazy lo-fi reverbs and vintage-punk warbles.
While there are a few pleasant moments, the album becomes a muddled reverie by the end. Indeed, The Fresh & Onlys live up to their moniker on this record. They have a refreshingly unrefined sound. Too bad it’s the only sound they make.