Faraquet - "Study In Movement" (mp3)

Faraquet's sole full-length release, 2000's The View From This Tower is probably one of my favorite rock albums of this decade so far, just for all the sweet spots it hits for me that few bands ever have all at once: essentially, a power trio combing the Dischord aesthetic with proggy dexterity, and a singer who doesn't sound particularly engaged with his words but still has a fairly pleasant and unique voice. And it bummed me the fuck out that, like the band they rose up out of, Smart Went Crazy, they broke just as I was realizing how much I loved them, and so I never got to see them live. And the next band to rise up out of Faraquet, Medications, was similar enough that I liked first record and am glad they're still together and working on another, but they didn't quite hit that same sweet spot.

So I was pretty fanatically excited when Faraquet announced that they would be briefly reforming to play some shows in Brazil (where they apparently have a significant following) and one hometown show in D.C. and release a rarities compilation. Thing is, that announcement was well over a year ago, and when the Brazil shows came and went and months and months went by with no further mention of the compilation or the local show, I started to give up hope that I'd ever see the band live, or hear their collected non-album material (I had an mp3 of "Study In Movement" on my old computer for a few years that's long gone now, but nothing else from their single and EP releases). So it was pretty lucky that a few days ago, I just happened to look at the Black Cat's schedule of upcoming shows, and saw that Faraquet are playing their long-promised U.S. reunion show next week. And subsequently I quickly realized that the compilation, Anthology 1997-98, has actually been out since late July and had managed to escape my notice until now. And you'd better believe I bought a ticket and the album damn quick.

Anthology is by means an equal to The View From This Tower, which was made a year or two after the material compiled here. There's a sense that they hadn't completely gelled into the unit that made the album on some tracks, but for the most part, the aesthetic and the musicianship are all there, and I'm sure some of these songs will grow on me as quickly as the album did. If anything's off, it's that Devin Ocampo's vocals are generally lower in the mix and a little less confident. And sometimes the tempo shifts and song structures aren't quite as smooth, which becomes most clear on one of the collection's two previously unreleased tracks, an alternate version of The View's "Sea Song" that lacks some of the LP version's dynamics. But it's all nitpicking; I know this is not supposed to be a complete and perfect album, and the important thing is that I'm thrilled to finally own the complete discography of this band. Between this and the Shudder To Think reunion I saw last month, it's been a pretty good year to be a nostalgic Dischord fan.

This entry was posted on Saturday, September 13, 2008 at 9:31 PM. You can skip to the end and leave a response.