Review: Fir Cone Children - Everything Is Easy
The title of this record is a perfect encapsulation of the Fir Cone Children modus operandi. Like a child hurtling downhill on a broken trike, the thrill of high speed momentarily suspends any threat of ill consequence. A delusional invincibility sets in. For 23 minutes, Fir Cone Children can pretend that the world is as conquerable and fun as their boisterous songs would like it to be: a pair of summery verses and choruses roll by in a haze of guitar fuzz and megaphone voices, and the whole thing lurches to a close just before someone gets hurt by the wayward spray of noise and reverb. The band are constantly riding their fucking luck.
The songs feel catchy but they aren’t. When it’s all over I’m left with that pleasant buzz of a good party the night before; I couldn’t tell you what happened but I know for sure that I enjoyed it. Falsetto voices jeer eachother while drumkits are squashed into the size of plastic plates and biscuit tins. Guitars blurt messily out of amplifiers whose electronics hang together amidst a mass of hastily applied glue and tangled masking tape. The echo-phlegm of Cocteau Twins splashes upon the limp body of two-chord punk. Could Fir Cone Children produce another Everything Is Easy if they tried, or was this the product of festered excitement, not enough time and outrageous production decisions made on the fly? Does it really matter?
