Fatalists’ new album Unwelded is a continuation of their excellent style, prog-punk by their own description.
Right from the off ‘The Old Hag’ sets the tone; a darkly undulating, guitar-driven miasma.
The vocals-laconic, soft-spoken and alluringly menacing-couldn’t be better placed in what’s an extremely well thought through album.
It’s not possible to pick any standout songs; they’re all of a standard and part, as with all great works, of a greater work.
Punk sometimes labours over its points, or drifts into the vanities of aesthetics and prog sometimes loses its focus, Fatalists avoid all traps with this.
It’s refreshing to hear something that can compete with Fugazi’s seminal In on the Kill Taker – this has the same sense of effortlessness that comes from people knowing what they’re doing and being in synch with one another as musicians.
You feel like you’ve heard it before, but that’s too easy a call-there’s something here which meets a need you didn’t know how to articulate.
The tracks are of some length, most towards the six-minute mark, and we should be grateful, there’s room to expand on the themes, distinct with each track but built around the perfect semblance of rage, angst and bold musicianship.
It’s a brilliant record, worth a listen by anyone, whatever their stylistic preference, not as an effete, ‘genre-defining’ work, but as something that’s an eerily accurate articulation of music that is complete in its own self and its place in the world.
Riffs abound, staccato-d by first-rate drumming and vocals that, as seen above, have their own inviting quality.
There are shades almost of Radiohead sometimes, Kid A and Amnesiac Radiohead, although Fatalists labour far less, it sounds so obvious with them.
Like the best three-piece bands they spend a lot of time playing around the distance between them and from that jam-like space comes music which demands a second listen, and a third, and a fourth – maybe take some leave.
Parts of this week I’ve been reading Hunter S Thompson, and there are parallels with this, an aesthetic that’s so complete it’s engrossing, and what flaws there might be you’re happy to overlook.
Eager to, even, there’s something happening there that makes you question your own competence.
Words: Simon Jones
