The 90s pop culture nostalgia of the Malaysian six-piece
Fridays are truly nostalgic lovers. On their 2015 debut album “Verklempt”, the six Malaysian musicians paid a faithful tribute to classic indie pop sounds of 90s artist Sarah Records, such as Another Sunny Day and Heavenly. On ‘No One Realizes This Is Nowhere’, they turned a little further west to embrace the universe of young ’90s Americana.
Fridays have woven a record filled with compelling stories of grief, adolescent indolence and youthful candor. It’s all framed against the backdrop of proms, cheerleader teams and summer adventures, references to ’90s pop culture such as American pie and Sega Mega Drive were scrapped along the way.
The sound is also strongly inspired by modern rock from this era. Although the opener “Constellation” teases a return to the softer sounds of the early days of The Fridays, the next track “In The Wilderness The Bear Does Not Reply Text Messages” reveals the bait and the switch. An alt-punk gem, it starts off harmlessly with a Coyote Shivers-channeling feel-good pop punk verse that quickly escalates into an old-school hardcore chorus and ends with screaming guitar solos and a sample of the speech “The dream will never die ”by Ted Kennedy. . And that’s how Old Fridays and their old British jangly pop sound were brought down with one brutal blow.
On ‘No One Realizes This Is Nowhere,’ The Fridays pulls a little more hip in creative ways, allowing each song to take on a unique life. The playful ska punk of “Disneyland (It’s All Happening)” and the guitar tapping solo on “(There’s No Clean) Underwear” sound like they belong to different records, making the album feel like a band. -sound where different sounds come together in the service of a larger narrative. Which makes sense, as singer Acap F said NME that the process of writing The Fridays on this record involved imagining each track against the backdrop of scenes from his favorite movies.
It’s a very evident process on the record’s supreme pop moment, “Planking Without Passion Looks So Dumb,” a track that draws heavily on Gin Blossoms to create one of the region’s wellness anthems. ‘year. Acap said he imagined the track accompanying a scene in “an imaginary Molly Ringwald movie, where the song’s protagonist confesses his feelings to her seconds before boarding a plane” and tells her that “there is no more time for complications / Smile, unpack and stay”. We’ve all seen this scene before and yes the song is perfect for that.
If there’s one flaw, it’s that in the band’s quest to pursue such a broad sonically and conceptually approach, they sacrificed some of the lo-fi charm that made their debut so lovable. ‘No One Realizes This Is Nowhere’ has been written over the past five years and, as such, largely ignores the changing tune of the past 18 months. Instead, it taps into the cultural references of The Fridays’ youth, namely American teen movies and popular culture. It’s a welcome change from the prevailing gloom around us, creating a nice slice of nostalgia that listeners can happily return to.
Details
- Release date: July 31
- A record company: Absolutely Behaved Production