Amusement Parks On Fire

Item: Amusement Parks On Fire
Author: Peter Veness

(2004)

Reviewed by Peter Veness

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Label Filter US RecordingsDecapolisMay 2005

post-rock shoegaze

It's the Zen question of music journalism: what makes a good album?

The answer is deceptively simple. Good songs make a good album, a good song carries a great lyrical story or a rare and wonderful turn of phrase coupled with a sonic treat both original and challenging but also carrying a giant hook to pull you in.
So that's the pop lovers definition of a good album but it's a definition that can be equally applied to Tool, Sigur Ros, Debussy and Miles Davis but (stay with me, you're almost at the bit you started reading for) Amusement Parks on Fire offer not a single song on their debut self titled LP.

APOF is driven by 17 year-old British lad Michael Feerick and it's likely you've already stumbled across the hype generated by NME and other music journalists with vocabularies limited to a single phrase: "best band ever".

It's not that Feerick isn't talented; the album more than consummately displays his musical chops but he still doesn't properly understand songwriting. The opener, 23 Jewels is blatantly stolen from the afore mentioned Icelandic outfit and any mood created by it is torn to pieces then shoved through a large animal's digestive track moments in to the second song.
That track, Venus In Cancer certainly offers a hook in the vortexing Kevin Shields riff running right through the centre of it but the drumming is so ham-fisted as to completely ruin any possibility of redeeming the song. Percussions slaps incessantly and the kick drum is never far behind while the guitar yearns for the same attention to fuzz Shields offered more than a decade ago and still offers, albeit sporadically, today.

There'd be no point going on here, if it wasn't for the hyperbole Amusement Parks On Fire have received - this is now a matter of principal. If Feerick is attempting to revive shoegazer he fails miserably, last time I looked Loveless was still selling pretty well so why bother? Well, because of post-rock. It's a moot point if you ask me because post-rock took shoegazer on board at the beginning - there's no need to revisit it because it's already been thoroughly co-opted through countless better performers than Amusement Parks On Fire.

0.5/4