It’s always a fickle thing to try and craft some quality post-punk material. In my experience, it is one of those styles that can be quite tricky to bring together in a form that doesn’t feel like it’s a flat rip-off of some larger act that has come before with more than a few efforts coming together as not much more than uninspired heaps. My interest in the sound has never quite waned over the years though as I’m always ready for the occasional trip to the style when a band does come along that catches my interest. With their latest effort, Fews has done just that.
It’s not often that the realm of punk is able to come forth and deliver material that can stand on its own two legs without leaning too much into its rock and metal contemporaries for assistance with even fewer seeming to manage the prospect of what proper post-punk is able to deliver. When I first stepped into “Glass City”, I found myself wanting more but I knew there was something within the ten tracks of Fews’s third full-length album that a repeated listen would enable me to appreciate should I simply be patient. In the following weeks, the very melodies and atmospheres of “Glass City” began to wash over me in a form of uncompromising euphoria that it became damn near impossible for me to get out of my head between the subtleties and gloomy passages that Fews calls home with their incredibly honed-in craft. A record that sticks to the band’s own credit of being a post-punk act that really embodies what the sound has long been about to its very core, “Glass City” offers not so much as a single shred of compromisation as Fews truly feels in their elements in every given track. Without too much polish in its production and a clear passion for what they’re doing, Fews sets itself apart from much of what modern post-punk attempts to do, even if it’s just a little as this record does virtually nothing in progressing the genre as a whole into new sonic territory. But not every effort needs to try to be ground-breaking, and Fews puts on one hell of a display to make “Glass City” an offering that fans of the style should not turn away.
Far from a burgeoning name in their scene given all they’ve been able to accomplish up to this point, Fews has managed to make quite a name for themselves since their debut eight years ago with everything that they’ve brought to the table for this new effort something that is sure to only further elevate their reputation. “Glass City” has much to explore for anyone looking to lose themselves in a proper creation of post-punk that doesn’t hold back in any category as Fews stands tall as an act that I cannot help but wholly recommend to anyone looking for what the modern landscape of post-punk has to offer.
“Glass City” releases on April 14th!
LISTEN to advanced tracks from “Glass City” on Bandcamp here.
LIKE Fews on Facebook here.
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