Fawns of Love
Who Cares About Tomorrow/“Standing” “Falling”
Reviewed by: Ziggy Merritt
With both Slowdive and Ride releasing new albums this year, it’s hard not to look at shoegaze music and wonder how far the reach of its emergence extended. Certainly it has shown its peculiar adaptability, becoming an intrinsic part of what most recognize as indie music today if that term still has any true meaning. Fawns of Love take on the genre drifts toward its origins, taking more hints from Slowdive than Ride and adapting an Elizabeth Fraser-level of glossolalia in the construction of their debut, Who Cares About Tomorrow. Their epilogue of sorts to that album, the double single of “Standing” and “Falling,” prescribes to that same school of thought. With these singles there’s a remarkable adherence to vintage as fidelity as fuzzed up as cotton imparts a fresh shine that many shoegaze revivalists fail to deliver.
Fawns of Love, the creation of duo Joseph and Jenny Andreotti, is only the latest in a long series of exploratory entries into the various facets of pop music. 60s psychedelics and minimalism have defined some of the couple’s previous projects with their debut under Fawns of Love, released back in early March, being perhaps their darkest entry yet. It swims in an ill-defined haze that finds its footing when it leans closer to the depth of albums like Souvlaki and Head Over Heels. “That’s What We Do” and “How We Live Now” show off their ability to not only emulate their influences but reveal some quotient of originality as the vocals float on top of lo-fi clouds.
Sometimes that haze the album revels in is so densely obfuscating in the production that it’s frustrating to discern what’s really going on. “That’s What We Do” and “Scattered Pieces” are the biggest culprits here. Neither are without their merit, but I can’t help but think both might be better without the constant filter of gauze wrapped around the instrumentation.
Their double-A side singles revive some of that ire, but are notably more cavernous in quality to their benefit. “Falling” edges out as the standout for its own maudlin, love-lost sentiments well accentuated by the duo at their most atmospheric and encompassing. It’s a coda to an album that doesn’t need to necessarily match the groundbreaking work of its predecessors. Who Cares About Tomorrow succeeds in its effort to simply provide something interesting and meaningful to the genre.
Rating: Listenable
