Standard Fare

The Noyelle Beat

(Bar/None)

Record Review by Marcel Feldmar

The Standard Fare is actually anything but.

I’m sure that line has been used before, but I’m not going to check, because I like it.

We start off our introduction to this UK-based trio with a happy and guitar-jangled pop crash that sounds like it’s falling somewhere between the Arctic Monkeys and Prolapse, a little more on the Prolapse side… but with female vocals courtesy of Emma Kupa. The second song, “Nuit Avec Une Ami” falls a little more on the Arctic Monkey side… but with an interesting twist thanks to the back and forth vocals between Emma and Danny How that makes me think of a slightly happier and much more British Rainer Maria. The band, not the poet. That band, and also a little nod of the rock head to the band Sleeper. I always liked that band…

Emma also hits the bass, pretty hard, and Danny hits the guitar, a little harder. Bringing up the back-up, hitting them drums, steadily spastic and pop rocked out and rolling, is Andy Bez. The sound speeds out and spins you around, making it seem like there’s a full on four or five piece, but no. Three is just enough of a crowd to keep your ears happy here.

It’s actually on the fourth song that I feel a little of the complete picture becomes a little clearer. This is a slower kind of wistful song that breaks of and jumps into another upbeat pop jangle spazz that’s titled “Fifteen”. I keep hearing those emotional hits, but they’re played very straight. Almost a deadpan delivery against the frantic guitar strangle, and that is almost disconcerting, but at the same time, that’s what makes the band step up a little towards a new height. Where they go from here will be interesting. The slowness of “Wrong Kind Of Trouble” is almost Twee, almost cocktail poetic, and just the fact that this song is here is important. This is where the band says, “Hey, we could sound like this, sometimes we feel like this, but you know what? We just don’t want to. We have sad things to say, but we’re young and full of life, so we’re gonna keep on rocking… like this…” and then “Fifteen” hits.

As pop as the songs get, there’s a definitely deconstruction at work, and I don’t know if it’s intentional, or just my overflowing ears, but the songs of the Standard Fare seem to be built upon the spirits of the No Wave sound. Definitely more melodic, and song structured, but it’s the constant hint of dissonance that lies underneath the edge of surprisingly good hooks that attracts me more than the slight sprinkles of summer dance parties and the autumns of lust lost that are sprinkled across the verse chorus verses.

That mournful and wistful back and forth between Emma and Danny just kills me on “Secret Little Sweetheart,” and it’s the way they move against the rhythms. It’s the sonic juxtaposition. It’s a little bit indie, a little bit rock ‘n’ roll. And that rock hits out hard on the guitar intro to “I Know It’s Hard,” but then it fades and grows in sharp stringed waves against the lyrics. This feels like angst, straight up. No melodramatics, just, you know, this is how it is.