The merging of indie and electro-dance has produced many breakthrough successes, and one of the biggest has been England’s Friendly Fires, who garnered fans up to and including Kanye West (QRO album review) with the 2008 self-titled debut (QRO review). Follow-up Pala sticks to the same script that won the band so many plaudits, even if it lacks Friendly Fires‘s standouts, and doesn’t feel as original, second time ‘round.
Friendly Fires added tropical rhythms to the indie-electrodance script (including singer Ed Macfarlane always wearing a Hawaiian shirt), and Pala keeps that up, and not just in the obvious “Hawaiian Air”, an atmospheric party over the Pacific (at least they’re not flying Oceanic…). Most of the tracks tend towards the slightly ominous nighttime disco-dance, from opener “Live Those Days Tonight” on, with an eye on what happens when the party ends (and the coke runs out…). Friendly Fires occasionally add the kind of emotion that made Fires‘s “Paris” so great, such as in “Blue Cassette” and “True Love”, but not enough to make those tracks, which are still Pala‘s best, stand out the way “Paris” and “Jump In the Pool” did on Fires.
Instead, sometimes Pala feels like ‘paint-by-numbers Friendly Fires’ – immediately recognizable as the band, but not memorable as pieces. The sadder fare, such as the slow & stripped title track or “Chimes”, doesn’t provide enough of a contrast, while the VHS or Beta (QRO spotlight on)-like “Hurting” is a lesser VHS or Beta track.
Friendly Fires didn’t need to reinvent the wheel for the sophomore release, and Pala has most of what made you fall in love with the band in the first place. But you could have hoped that they would have done more.
