Despite having launched another side-project with Dove Hounds a couple of weeks ago, the spring sees Freddy Ruppert bring Former Ghosts project back to Europe in support of latest album, New Love. Whilst also a departure from playing small rooms in support of Parenthetical Girls in the Summer of last year, the sojourn also looks like it may be giving some of the country’s most exciting new bands their first experience of playing music live, in the flesh, to people that might actually care. Whilst the Manchester date will mark Christian Aids’ debut gig, the corresponding date in Brighton will shed light on four piece Fear of Men, a group who thus far don’t exist outside of a few demo recordings and a twitter account.
Whilst Ruppert’s appeal lay in the gruesome honesty and brutal industrality of his work, Fear of Men deal more in the dreamy, shoegaze tinged pop that Veronica Falls can still be irresistable. It’s tempting to even say there’s a hint of fleetwood Mac in there, too, but this is more Dreams being played at the wrong speed than a group of chancers in a pub covering Go Your Own Way. It’s lush, and feels gloriously analogue – a texture to the noise going deeper than the grit of their lo-fi recordings. It’s a sound that meanders, a hazy stumble through a dozen half remembered pop songs.
[bandcamp]
