Category: From The Vault
Tags: Beggar's Banquet), Film School - Hideout (2007

I heard of Film School while listening to another sampler (compilations being my preference lately) of French Talitres Records, featuring also the kinds of Calla, Hood and iLiKETRAiNS. Interesting, vaguely monotonous, dreamy, hushed sound, i thought then. So to YouTube i go, and find some clips, but frankly speaking, none caught my attention, apart from the fact that i didn’t like the face of the (bearded) singer much. Leaving stupid thoughts behind, when I next saw the above album in Metropolis low-price stall, it caught my attention partly due to nice and quirky front cover artwork, which in itself is a work of art (wish it was a vinyl so i could hang it on my wall) – i would imagine it somewhere between the pages of some bleak melancholic fantasy book. So out with it I go.
The music. Noisy multi-layered guitars, catchy melodies, a bit heart-stricken, a bit far-off vocals, mostly male backed by female ones. The songs, although atmospheric and dreamy, have distinctive driving rhythm and a certain liveliness. They follow mostly the classic four-piece formula, plus some synths/samples, and enough of backing vocals, which are never intrusive and are very tastefully placed. A few other bands come to mind – My Bloody Valentine of course, A Place To Bury Strangers, add the whole dreamy shoegazing flock of artists. The all in all atmosphere is pretty romantic, nostalgic, the lyrics mostly deal with love (again) and relationships in general (or at least i like to think of them that way). My personal favourites : the romantic “Two kinds” (there are two kinds of love, and one we used to have), “Florida” (very My Bloody Valentine-ish, with those breathy female vocals, plus some killer electronic samples), “Sick hipster nursed by a suicide girl” (you can’t ignore a song with such title! – Syd Barrett-ish refrain, stoned bassy vocals and then those backing piano parts are absolutely awesome).

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About the Author: CnB