Fake Empire - 'Elders'

Portsmouth alt-rock trio Fake Empire, a band who I unfortunately missed out on seeing at Dials 2019, start the new year with a new single. Elders is three and half minutes of banging indie noir, combining twangy guitar, sullen lyrics, stratospheric mixing and a thumping rhythm that, on initial listen, reminded me very much of early Editors (this is not, I must stress, a bad thing).

I confess that the more I've heard of Fake Empire over recent months the more I like them, the collective of Becky Bellinger, Simon Brookes and Les Black have a knack in serving up songs that are a beautiful blend of some of my favourite bands yet making the resulting brew their own. A pinch of The National, a sprinkle of The Cure, a dash of Suede, stir well and serve loud with a garnish of early Simple Minds, there is a lot going into the pot here. It's all too easy to spoil a dish like this by over-seasoning but the finished product is subtly flavoured and not over-powered by its constituent ingredients.

In the interests of full disclosure I must admit to previously being someone who tutted and shrugged when presented with such material (as happened after my first listen to The Strokes debut album, mostly due to its aural familiarity to another band from New York). However, in my defence, I read the NME from front-to-back in those days, fully absorbing its slights of perceived muso pedantry and pretension.

Fake Empire might wear their influences easily but they are not cloning my record collection wholesale. They channel the best of it and make something new, interesting, powerful. Case in point, Elders, a track that fair pelts along like a fast ride in a sporty convertible, the soundtrack to an urgent and windswept journey on winding roads. It's reassuringly familiar, instantly hummable and most definitely ticks a lot of my boxes. Is it the best thing I've heard from the band? No (that would be this gorgeously widescreen number) but it's a cracker of a tune all the same. And next time I get the chance to see them I'm definitely taking it.