Fanfarlo

The day that we join the dirt and the weeds is upon us in these songs from London band Fanfarlo. The day when the end of the earth is discovered to have been off by a few thousand feet - adding itself to the salivating, clattering oceans is here. These are interestingly hopeless, but hopeful times when promises mean nothing and even if there's part of a man who thinks to himself, "It might be easier to just fall in with the rocks, to just let the tide take me out to a silent grave, if everything is shaking that way," there's another part of him - the Fanfarlo part of him - that's curling his toes, digging into the ground and wishing that he'll wake up on the living side of the outburst.

Lead singer Simon Balthazar delivers these songs of almost fatalistic outlooks like a man who's prepared for the worst but is still hesitant to believe the hype, or that it will ever get as bad as they're saying it might get. He's holding out, somewhat, that there is going to be a clearing, that something's going to come along to change the trajectory. He's ready for everything to just go down the tubes though and he's found some sticky comfort there, knowing that there's little that he can do to change anything. Sometimes just knowing that you've got no control in a matter is enough to settle you. When Balthazar sings, "All the dust will rearrange itself," when commenting about his demise, there's peace there.