Fat White Family released a new album in April, Forgiveness Is Yours and inch by inch it’s been creeping into my consciousness, an album I keep coming back to. Like any Fat White Family album there are moments where they cross the line- crossing the line is very much par for the course- but this album has songs to spare, a dynamic and vital sound. They parted company with guitarist Saul Adamczewski during the making of it (not for the first time) and maybe this has given them a focus, a line to pursue. Singer and frontman Lias Saoudi has trodden the path of excess in the past and has since lockdown moved into writing. Several spoken word pieces appear on Forgiveness Is Yours, a harbinger maybe of what could come next. With the guitarist gone the band have stretched into synths and orchestration, funk and disco. Opening song is none minute and a half long, starts with the blast of a ship’s funnel and then out of tune horns and woodwind as Lias reads… something. From there the throb of sci fi synths wobble in and the song John Lennon wanders into earshot, pastoral psychedelia and Lias muttering, gradually becoming clearer and more upfront. Bullet Of Dignity (remixed brilliantly by Beyond The Wizard’s Sleeve) is slinky, sinuous funk, and Lias’ still striking first line, ‘you say you’re just thirty one/ what’s that in cannibal years?’. The bass sax blows and the distorted funk bubbles away and a refrain from Middle Eastern horns picks up.
The album continues onwards, earworms and discordance in equal measure, drum machines and horns, synths and disco bass and Lias always saying or singing something interesting. something that makes you go, ‘what did he just say?’. The song titles Polygamy Is Only For The Chief and Visions Of Pain give you some idea of where things are heading although Today You Become A Man is a surprise and maybe something you won’t listen to that often- weird funk, Miles Davis horns and Lias offering a spoken word explanation of his brother’s circumcision (performed without anaesthetic) in Algeria in the 80s.
Once Today You Become A Man is over there’s a slight breather in the slowed down lounge music/ cabaret vibes of Religion For One. Nothing stays still for very long and the record then hurtles into the home straight, with the hectic groove and whispered vox of Feed The Horse, the noisy pop of What’s That Say, Work’s 80s synth throb, as if they’ve suddenly decided to play a stadium- a small stadium but a stadium nonetheless. After all that Forgiveness Is Yours finishes with a torch song, You Can’t Force It. A burst of noise followed by piano and the distinct whiff of Weimar. Lias croons like a jazz club singer and then a choir of backing singers join him, all in unison singing, ‘you can’t force it/ no matter what they say’. Crescendo and final piano plunk. Over. Goodnight.
It’s a remarkable album I think, the work of a band who have pushed at the limits. At their Bandcamp page where you can listen to the entire album, the artist bio merely says ‘It’s all about the struggle’. If they had a struggle making the album it was worth the effort.
A few days ago they appeared live on French TV, a show called ARTE Concert at Ground Control in Paris, playing surrounded by a crowd on four sides. Lias is in a body stocking. The synth/ sax player is in a beret, crop to, knickers combo. The three guitarists/ bassists look like the thirty somethings from the cafe/ bar down the road. Fat White Family often approach performing as an opportunity to provoke and to push the audience out of their comfort zone. Lias is off the stage and in crowd before the intro to the first song has been dispatched and finishes the song on the floor. From there it’s thirty minutes of intense, disco/ funk/ rock ‘n’ roll magic.
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