When a series of alt-folk collectives broke out a few years ago, one of the brightest was London’s Fanfarlo. Going from self-released to major label in record time, their sound was a fresh alternative to garage-rock & electronica – so fresh that a bunch of other acts came along, independently doing the same thing. Thankfully, Fanfarlo have kept it fresh, now back on their own label, with Let’s Go Extinct.
Fanfarlo remains a largely bright band, more Let’s Go than Extinct, from brightening & moving opener “Life In the Sky” to the nicely expanding title track to close. Indeed, they’ve almost got alt-folk collective anthems in back-to-back “Cell Song” and “Myth of Myself (A Ruse To Exploit Our Weaknesses)”. The group also introduces some disco-dance into their sound – yes, something that seemingly every ‘alt-’ act is doing these days (see Fire, Arcade – QRO album review), but Fanfarlo do it well, as indietronica mixes in quite fine with their brightness on “A Distance” and “Landlocked”. Only the maudlin “Painting With Life” and the not as strong spacey “We’re the Future” (probably a holdover from last year’s The Sea EP, a sci-fi/utopian concept project), hold Extinct back.
Like garage-rock and neo-disco (see Punk, Daft – QRO album review), the alt-folk collective is an established sound these days. Fanfarlo could have repeated themselves and become Extinct, but instead they said, Let’s Go.
Fanfarlo – A Distance
