Fluf: Home Improvements
Fluf sounds an awful lot like Overwhelming Colorfast, with their imposing allegiance to analog getting a warm, fuzzy sound out of everything. In fact, they sound so much like Overwhelming Colorfast it was my purpose in life for a few moments to out them like Superman and Clark Kent. They were both on Headhunter Records and Fluf’s guitarist and vocalist is credited merely as “O.” Plus, Fluf has a comment on Overwhelming Colorfast’s MySpace page. After that, though, I couldn’t find anything. Fluf is from San Diego, Overwhelming Colorfast is from San Francisco, and this album was released in between Overwhelming Colorfast’s first two. So it’s probably just an influential relationship, not an incognito one.
Other than pointing out that these guys also have a thrash edge to them, and that they then tend to get faster, lower, and heavier than Overwhelming Colorfast, there’s not really much more to say. Except you probably don’t know what Overwhelming Colorfast sounds like, because your life is sad, dark, and cold.
Well do yourself a favor and go check these bands out, because they drape emotional melodies over poppy songs and put everything through the warm fuzz machine and crank everything up loud.
Home Improvements has its moments where it drags and repeats a bit too much, like “Token Instrumental” and “Mark Andrea,” which has no business being over seven minutes long, but those are minor quibbles in the grand scheme of things. This is still a damned good album, and the fuzzy timbres warm things up even for those who are turned off by the volume and aggressiveness at first.
Rating:
Mixers: “Sticky Bun,” “Rooked”
Non-keepers: “Stuffed Animal,” “The Power,” “Token Instrumental,” “Broke,” “Tried”
Filed Between: Flight Of The Conchords (Flight Of The Conchords) and The Folksene Collection
Tags: 1993, 4 lunchboxes, CD reviews, music