Album review: FIDLAR - Almost Free

FIDLAR - Almost Free

Life does as life will, as in it continues to surprise. For instance, self-described skate punks/garage rockers FIDLAR (Fuck It Dog Life’s A Risk) couldn’t sound more unlike the post-Zeppelin stomp of Greta Van Fleet. And yet, their latest album Almost Free is almost everything I wanted from GVF. Funky fresh, gutsy, with laugh out loud moments and a contemporary take on flipping the bird, Almost Free blends Ska, Reggae, Rap, Blues, Funk, Punk and Rock with a fearless wit and fervent nihilism. Try to keep up.

The quartets coded message, hidden within their name, forms much of their identity. Their attitude steals from the tenants of the Church Of YOLO but is rooted in reality, and tackled real-world issues (gentrification, being a social persona non grata, broken hearts) with a nutty, fanged grin. In a world dominated by the likes of Matt Healey and Alex Turner, FIDLAR hangs a left, submerging themselves in sounding as un-hip as possible. Like the Yippies of the 1960s who pointed to the absurdity and hypocrisies of society with pranks, Almost Free is a musical pushback lined with gritty realism and a conveyor belt of influences.  The result is a tangible ‘FUCK YOU’ in every spat line and it is gleefully addictive.

Take, for instance, opener Get Off My Rock, which sounds like a mixture of MC5, The Beastie Boys and De La Soul. A war cry against the invasive forces on their neighbourhood (“Big fucking deal if you get gentrified, back in the day it was called colonised”), it’s secretly groovy, unabashedly uncouth and personifies the tongue in cheek, antagonistic nature of AF. Everything contained within sounds like grounds for confrontation, from the fake-woke individuals who litter California's beaches (“You’ve gone so far to the left you ended up on the right… Was that too fucking real?”) to his personal self (“Why does getting sober make you a loner… I Lost so many friends, who knew I was the problem”), everyone is a target. Even the audience can feel the heat, as the musical boundary transgressions (the gyration between country oriented harmonica, 80’s hip hop swagger and 90’s guitar licks) seems designed to push buttons. It’s lonely in no man's land, but it’s also where FIDLAR are at their most comfortable.

It’s not all anger and bluster, however. The furious melancholy of By Myself, with its ska/reggae drum beat, and the stomping sadness of Flake show that there are levels within AF, ones that feature introspection and no small amount of self-loathing. There’s not attempt to be better or search for answers however, and while it lends into their affinity for malarky, it does become a hindrance. With no light at the end of the tunnel in sight, AF occasionally becomes lost within itself, walking in circles, muttering at the floor or shaking its fist at the sky, which culminates in a disappointing finish for an album that opened its proceedings like a burst dam.


Still, perhaps that is all part of the motif. Frontman Zac Carper seems wholly uninterested in searching for or providing happy endings, only in stamping his feet and saying his piece. Their instance to dancing to their own tune (varied though it may be) is a noble pursuit that may not result in mega-stardom, but somehow I think they couldn’t care less. Their brand of hype rock and genre fusion may not be built to last, but if its good enough for them, then I find myself inclined to agree.


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