Indie Darlings With Cindy Lee, Friko, and Ekko Astral: Rapid-Fire Reviews
Rounding out the first half of the year I'm looking back and covering some bands that got major attention from either critics, music fans, or both.
Diamond Jubilee - Cindy Lee
One of the biggest surprises of 2024 was the emergence of massive critical acclaim for Cindy Lee and Diamond Jubilee. The project spawns out of the complicated journey of late 2000s indie rock outfit Women. While various members of the band broke off and formed Viet Cong, a group that would eventually change their name to Preoccupations and receive critical acclaim in the decade that followed, frontman Patrick Fiegel spawned this drag-oriented pop outfit that never quite reached the same level of acclaim. But now with the project's 7th album, which is still yet to be released on streaming services, that hype has arrived. I went into Diamond Jubilee having only sparingly heard other albums from the project like What's Tonight To Eternity and Act Of Tenderness. But in this two-hour epic of lo-fi hypnogogic pop it seems like everyone agrees Patrick has found his opus.
If you only know one thing about this album it's the worship of vintage aesthetics. Sunshine pop and girl group music are warped through this lo-fi lens throughout the album, still beautiful but far more mysterious with the sonic haze they have to cut through. A big highlight early on is the bubbly fragile pop stylings of Baby Blue transitioning into the jangly guitar-led Dreams Of You. The first disc concludes with a sentimental instrumental piece called Realistik Heaven whose dreamy guitars have to absolutely battle through a thick crackle just to be heard and sometimes come off piercing when they do break through.
One of the peaks of disc two is Dracula, which stands among the longest songs on the album but may also be the best. It features absolutely stunning haunted-house-style synths arrangements which sound stunning through the lo-fi mix. The song's refrains have also managed to stick with me despite how slowly they unfold. Those same cutting synths triumphantly return again a few songs later on another highlight, To Heal This Wounded Heart. In fact, the second disc is where so many of the record's best songs pop up and it also develops an impressive consistency throughout much of its more than an hour of material.
Occasionally though, the vintage demeanor will strangely fade for something like the minute-and-a-half of Olive Drab, whose orchestration sounds more like a film score than much of the grainy DIY present on the rest of the record. Later on the record, the chaotic dissonance of the last minute or so of Flesh And Blood is a pretty clear disruption of much of the breezy serenity that preceded it. Later on in the record there are similar aesthetic breaks that are equally surprising. While through one lens I understand why these have to be here to break up the flow of a two-hour record, they also feel like some of the least pointed and more inconsistent moments.
It's impossible to cover this album in its entirety, this is a "rapid-fire review" and it's nearly the length of one of my regular reviews all by itself. I will say that while this record is impressively consistent for its length, it would need to be astonishingly consistent to make its two hour runtime completely worthwhile. But with a strong second half that kicks in right when it needs to I think this record avoids falling completely into the pitfalls of some of its long album contemporaries and the lasting impression it leaves is a much stronger one. 7.5/10
Where we've been, Where we go from here - Friko
Friko may be even more of a surprising indie darling this year than Cindy Lee. A band I only heard of for the first time last year when the first singles from this album started dropping, they've grabbed a LOT of indie fans by the throat already. It's easy to see why when you look at their inspirations. Their instrumentally verbose and theatrical indie rock definitely has its roots in love of Radiohead and Arcade Fire and the comparisons they received to Black Country, New Road are obvious and predictable. All of that seems to create a record that would click with me perfectly, but I was surprised to not have much to say about the album when I first heard it. But as the months have gone by and it becomes a clearer and clearer part of the indie zeitgeist this year, I decided I had to cover it.
I like this record, let's get that out of the way immediately. Take the first two tracks as an example of why its versatility works with me. The former is a colder and more impenetrable indie cut but one that builds and bends in compelling ways. The follow-up Crimson To Chrome is an eruption of youthful indie rock angst analogous to Los Campesinos fronted by Conor Oberst, both huge compliments in my book. The rousing Los Campesinos comparisons roar back on another highlight later on the record Get Numb To It!. But as you may expect, those breakout tunes are the peak in both energy and dynamic delivery for the record.
True duds on the record are thankfully very few and far between. It's really only Until I'm With You Again that does little for me. Instead, the issue often feels like missed potential. For Ella approaches as an icy and deeply sentimental ballad and yet the lyrics seem to remarkably imprecise when it comes time to really add detail and context to the song. Chemical is a song that has the right idea but chooses to erupt at a point that always feels so unnecessarily abrupt. Placing it between two of the most saccharine songs on the record also feels like a particularly damning choice. To describe Where we've been as "promising" would be the absolute least I can do as a critic. The band isn't a product waiting to be molded, they're already here and the album's highlights prove it. While polish, focus, and continued songwriting improvement could work to make them even better and potentially maybe even to the level of their contemporaries one day. seeing this record as just a stepping stone is selling it short. That doesn't excuse the flaws though. Though it's ultimately a mixed bag there's enough absolutely essential 2024 indie material here to justify the position the album has risen to. 6.5/10
pink balloons - Ekko Astral
I've seen Ekko Astral live a couple of times before and they have a frenetic energy that I found incredibly exciting. But even given that I'm surprised at how quickly they elevated. Their debut album pink balloons dropped on Topshelf earlier this year and got a LOT of attention from critics and publications. That was exciting to me as a fan of the band's live shows who was very curious about how it may translate into a studio setting. In fact, I probably should have reviewed it quicker as the band has already lost a member since the album dropped. As I expected, the album refuses to take itself dead seriously. Opener head empty blues features some jittery riot grrrl-flavored punk jamming centered around the head-pounding repetition of the song's title and questions about the pronunciation of Bon Iver.
Lead single baethoven is a joke simple enough that it's impossible not to be in on it, which feels fitting for the simple, repetitive fury it serves up. Compare that with the most on-the-nose title on the entire record uwu type beat and the band does quite a bit to introduce you to their attitude in just the first three songs. But attitude aside, there still needs to be music underneath. One thing the band does really well is creating and controlling noise. Many of the best moments on this record feature a dizzying array of blown out vocals, frenetic drums, and wiry guitars. But there are also some deeply compelling and very unique moments. somewhere at the bottom of the river between l'enfant and eastern market is a spoken word cut whose early instrumentation literally sounds like a chain being dragged down the sidewalk. Its later orchestration is made to sound so much more swelling and dramatic in comparison. On a later highlight Sticks And Stones the band rushes back to the raucous punk anthems earlier on the record with yet another great result.
What occasionally holds the band back is a lack of focus and execution to go with that sound. Some of the jumping repetition gets old after a few choruses and there are songs here that somehow manage to avoid any catchy refrains whatsoever. But as far as criticisms go, underwhelming songwriting and an occasional failure for song structure to reinforce itself is both minor and imminently fixable. The hype behind Ekko Astral is real as they show off a versatility that the other witty, irreverent punk bands of the 2020's haven't quite matched yet and an underlying fury that can go toe-to-toe with anyone. 7/10
