Still playing catch-up from the hiatus a few weeks back and I’m glad I hadn’t deleted this one.
I spent much of the previous review of MFMB saying how loud they were but this focus track, ‘Harvest’ from their album ‘Sugar’ which was released on 25th March after a nine-year hiatus of their own is quite sedate by their standards.
The album concerns “the weight of existence and the deceptive allure of taking the easy way out,” which is art rock language, presumably for suicide, and the song has a distinct Fleetwood Mac sound to it in its innovative beat, a little like ‘Tusk’. While it isn’t the ballad I said I couldn’t imagine then writing last time out it does demonstrate MFMB’s considerable scope. A brief listen to other tracks tells me never to expect them to repeat a formula.
There’s something unnerving too about the lyrics of the song.
“And away it goes… and away we go…and away it all goes.” It’s recounted with the same tragic inevitability as in Ingrid Håvik’s ‘Marianna’ (“I have this certain fantasy…That someone hating you as much as I do…Slits your throat and down you go”) or Aurora’s ‘Murder Song, 5,4,3,2,1’ (“The gun is gone…And so am I…And here I go”) even if it only concerns the failure of a harvest crop. (Actually, it’s about “the dark atmospheric energy that’s been growing in the world during our absence”).
In other words, these lads know how to create atmosphere and it shows.
And then, guess what? It gets loud and they blister their way to the finishing line, guitars screaming.
Wonderful.
‘Sugar’ is out now on Adrian Records
Find them on:
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mfmbband
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thisismfmb/
