If all you\u2019ve heard of Foster The People is their single \u201cPumped Up Kicks,\u201d get this album. You see, \u201cKicks\u201d is a strange beast of a song. It was a viral success in 2010, gaining the Los Angeles, California group a loyal following, appearances at Coachella and South by Southwest, and finally a record signing. Torches, <\/i>their first full-length release, hit the airwaves in 2011, and it\u2019s a solid, ineffable collection of dance-y, poppy goodness. <\/p>\n
But beneath all the shimmering melodies and hooks that you\u2019ll hear over and over in your head and in malls, there\u2019s a weird darkness to this group. It\u2019s what inevitably stands out in \u201cPumped Up Kicks,\u201d a seemingly innocuous pop song that reveals itself to be about school shootings. Amid the charming falsetto vocals and whistling are lines like \u201cHe found a six-shooter gun in his dad\u2019s closet\u2026all the other kids with the pumped up kicks \/ You better run, better run \/ Outrun my gun.\u201d And yet the beats are so catchy that I\u2019d hazard a guess that most people just bypass the lyrics. It\u2019s a theme throughout the album: the dance-pop is riddled with a darker underbelly, lines that make you think twice when positioned against the absolutely peppy beats.<\/p>\n
But \u201cKicks\u201d aside, one listen to Torches <\/i>makes it clear why you hear these songs blaring constantly on the radio, and why half the album has been licensed to various shows, movies, and video games. The group, comprised by vocalist\/guitarist Mark Foster, bassist Cubbie Fink, and drummer Mark Pontius, clearly has an ear for melodies. Album opener \u201cHelena Beat\u201d is indie pop at its best, replete with bold choruses, Foster\u2019s slinky falsetto, and instrumentation that\u2019s densely layered but still punchy. These are subtle but sticky hooks, perfect to play on loop.<\/p>\n
Track after track is a smash hit, from the fizzy, danceable \u201cCall It What You Want\u201d to \u201cColor On The Walls (Don\u2019t Stop),\u201d which has recently been the soundtrack to Nissan commercials. But when the sheer, candy-colored energy of the singles wears off, the group still fires of some heartwarming cuts. Both \u201cWaste\u201d and \u201cI Would Do Anything For You\u201d are gorgeous, ballads in tone but buoyed by the complexity of the backbeats. \u201cI Would Do Anything For You\u201d has been criticized for being too simple, but I love the bare sentiment of a line like \u201cOoh la love \/ I\u2019ve fallen in love and it\u2019s better this time than ever before,\u201d particularly when delivered in Foster\u2019s earnest, lilting falsetto. Meanwhile, \u201cMiss You\u201d is like pumped up Coldplay, fervently building to a subdued, affecting chorus, then clasping back into a dance party.\u00a0 <\/p>\n
At nearly forty minutes, Torches <\/i>is just well-measured throughout, pop in sensibility but indie at heart. It\u2019s been touted as one of the best albums of 2011 (and endorsed by The Edge no less!), and you\u2019re bound to hear this everywhere you go. With their singles and beyond, Foster The People is definitely worth checking out. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":48,"featured_media":30852,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[8787],"rating":[5613],"class_list":["post-42529","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-foster-the-people","rating-rating-a-minus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/42529","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\/48"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=42529"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/42529\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30852"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=42529"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=42529"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=42529"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}