Uncle Frank Band – Fountains
This is top shelf pop music with a
brain and the ability to get you moving to match. That’s a rare combination in
any year, but with the continual dumbing down process that a lot of pop music
has seemingly undergone in the last day, it is a great thing to still find a
band of real human beings who don’t rely on machines to generate danceable
grooves and, instead, pack a personal wallop with their instrumental and vocal
talents. Uncle Frank, based out of the Leicester area in England, have swiftly
established a reputation as one of the best bands purveying a particular form
of pop that doesn’t just aspire to make people boogie. As the saying goes,
there’s something here for everyone. The first single from their forthcoming
sophomore album, Love Lion, is a monumentally entertaining number called
“Fountains” and it manages to get your tapping your feet and shaking while
still appealing to the heart.
The lyrics are definitely worth
hearing. Without ever seeming pretentious or overreaching, “Fountains” has
lyrical content that will unite an attentive audience and makes the band seem
every bit as human as those listening to their music. Viewing the world as a
madhouse from which they want escape, the yearning for joyfulness and something
affirming comes through in every line of the song. There isn’t one needless
word tacked on and, in a rare development, there’s a sense here that the band’s
lyrical content is every bit as important to their music in some ways as the
music. Vocalist Frank Benbini doubles down on that impression with his
powerful, yet highly finessed, singing. A crasser approach to handling the
lyrics on this track might have been to belt them out with all the conviction
and lung power that a vocalist can muster and some might have enjoyed that.
Benbini, however, brings his considerable experience as an important member of
the Fun Lovin’ Criminals to bear on this song and chooses tastefulness over
browbeating his audience into submission.
The arrangement is quite
straight-forward, but the individual components that make it work so well merit
examination. The engine room rates above them all. Drummer Junior Benbini and
his musical partner bassist Luke Bryan lay down a massive groove that,
undoubtedly, makes Frank’s job all the easier. There isn’t a large guitar
presence in this song and, instead, the track gets its top line instrumental
melody from Jay Lynz’s keyboard work. He never overdoes it. Instead, the
shimmering synth work gives the song a glossy sheen contrasting nicely with the
hard hitting rhythm section.
“Fountains” has the makings of a major
hit for the Uncle Frank Band. The musicians and singer alike have combustible
chemistry that never fails. The production, benefitting from a stellar mixing
job by renowned producer Tim Latham, frames this track in the best possible
sonic light and sets up the presentation of their next album in such a way that
its success is virtually a sure thing.
Scott Wigley
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