{"id":40572,"date":"2007-11-02T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2007-11-02T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/fools-for-april-ep\/"},"modified":"2007-11-02T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2007-11-02T00:00:00","slug":"fools-for-april-ep","status":"publish","type":"review","link":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/reviews\/fools-for-april-ep\/","title":{"rendered":"Fools For April EP"},"content":{"rendered":"

The Stack\u00a0— as my personal to-be-reviewed pile o\u2019 discs has come to be known Chez Warburg\u00a0— has grown to truly terrifying proportions.\u00a0 When it gets to where you can lose a 16-pound cat behind the pile of unlistened-to material on your desk, it\u2019s time for drastic measures.<\/p>\n

This usually means a brutal culling session, as in \u201cNope. Nope. Send it to another writer. Nope. Nope. Don\u2019t hear it. Oh fine, it stays.\u201d\u00a0 The aforementioned monologue taking maybe fifteen minutes\u00a0— i.e. no more than 90 seconds per artist.\u00a0 (Hey, I said it was brutal.)<\/p>\n

That\u2019s what it usually<\/i> means.<\/p>\n

But leave it to a duo called Fools For April to make a fool of me, because it\u2019s now been half an hour since my culling session began and I haven\u2019t gotten past the first disc yet.\u00a0 To make this all even more improbable, those wily Fools sent me a custom compilation disc that isn\u2019t even any sort of official release, though since it includes three of the four songs on the EP available on their Web site<\/a>, I\u2019m going to approach this as a review of that release plus bonus tracks.<\/p>\n

Fools For April is a collaboration between vocalist-guitarist Dov Rosenblatt (Blue Fringe) and guitarist-vocalist C Lanzbom (Soul Farm) that finds the pair harmonizing beautifully over a series of sweet grooves and lilting solos.\u00a0 It\u2019s literate folk-pop that gets your feet tapping, classicist in composition but modern in every other way, sort of like Matt Nathanson if he was a scruffier and more endearing set of twins.<\/p>\n

The disc I have opens with \u201cFallin At Your Feet,\u201d which starts out in a sort of sleepy acoustic Jack Johnson groove before building into a mid-tempo jangler that actually absorbs a touch of funk into the beat.\u00a0 Lanzbom\u2019s electric guitar accents counterpoint Rosenblatt\u2019s earnest vocals beautifully, creating an instantly compelling harmonic convergence.<\/p>\n

EP cut \u201cLong Division\u201d adds some bluesy Harrison\/Clapton electric licks to the package before the <\/place>Harrison theme becomes even more explicit in the near-homage track \u201cRun Run Run.\u201d \u00a0This terrific number sounds like nothing so much as a lost Harrison-Crosby collaboration, all rolling melody and sweet high harmonies.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll Or Nothing\u201d has a sort of airy alt-rock feel in its opening bars, but then the acoustic rhythm guitar kicks in and you\u2019re riding a wave of folk-pop melody.\u00a0 Another EP cut, \u201cBetter Place,\u201d has a sort of gloomy early-Dylan feel at first, then blossoms into a steady-on folk-rocker with organ and female background vocals filling out the sound. <\/p>\n

\u201cFirst Time Again,\u201d which closes both the group\u2019s official EP and my custom version, is a completely acoustic ballad that spotlights the way the duo\u2019s voices and guitars mesh\u00a0— smooth like buttah.<\/p>\n

\u201cParallel Love,\u201d the one song on the EP that didn\u2019t appear on my custom compilation, has somewhat of a Jimmy Eat World ballad vibe, slow and earnest with sunny harmonies, organ accents and big cymbals.\u00a0 Definitely worthy of inclusion when the boys issue a full-length, which their one-sheet declares is due in Fall 2008.<\/p>\n

The Stack still awaits.\u00a0 But now I\u2019ve been reminded of the reason it\u2019s always worth slogging through: new music to enjoy and a new group to watch.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":29055,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[8075],"rating":[5617],"class_list":["post-40572","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-fools-for-april","rating-rating-b-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/40572","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40572"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/40572\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29055"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40572"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=40572"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=40572"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}