Eric Saeger
Fractured Life - Air Traffic
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You know what’s funny these days, you take a band like this, strip off one guitar layer and all the hooky stuff and it’d be Instant Bowery Ballroom Indie-rock with no chance in hell of ever getting mainstream love. We begin with the run-around-the-city-holding-hands makeout-rock of “Come On,” half Libertines and half Rod Stewart, as in nasal limey vocals and big, fat electric-piano-pounding straight out of “Stay With Me.” “Charlotte” is the result of Franz Ferdinand and Buzzcocks cross-pollination, punkily frenetic but (almost) ready for a shot at any one of the morning news shows that’s been retarding the synaptic abilities of US housewives for decades now. As you’d expect in our just-plain-crazy world, a song titled “Just Abuse Me” is a turn toward prettiness and gravitas, reminiscent of Coldplay’s “Clocks.” Same for “Shooting Star,” although by that point the vocals have drifted away from purposeful Cure intonation toward a more joking Dexy’s Midnight Runner sound.
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