Fortress Social Club / Make Love, Not Babies

Totally excellent. Sounds like they took all the great parts of garage rock – catchy riffs, straining vocals and earnest lyrics – and turned it into something slightly more modern. Still very retro but not in an overdone way. Definitely some psyche elements in some places a la late Beatles. There are some great screams.

Favorite Tracks: 1, 6, but I’d play almost all of them (10 is a charming change of pace)

1. 2:48 ***Fuzzed out guitars, Female harmonies, garage male vocals, a few sweet little solos throughout, main riff is repetitive and danceable
2. 4:06 Groovy bass line, guitars more reverby and ambient until chorus, vocals slightly buried, fun atonal backing vox in chorus, two part guitar harmony solo/horn solo
3. 3:21 Starts with softer vox and strummy guitar, psychedelic in the “Strawberry Fields” sense, total slow jam, fake ambient fade out ending into heavier chorus/outro
4. 3:02 Syncopated, crisp and upbeat, strained and slightly distorted vocals, old-timey mo-town feel
5. 4:35 FCC FUCK (but its very quiet at the end) Charming false start, melodic vocals with driving drums into walking bassline and quick talky vocals, feels slightly B-52s in the chorus, fuzzy guitar solo, outro jam with improvisation
6. 5:07 ***Spacey guitar, sparse drums, nostalgic harmonica melody, classic scratchy vox and smooth female backing vox, picks up halfway through, excellent build and energetic vox
7. 3:22 Impromptu vocal intro, dark bluesy number, rattling drums, repetitive bass groove
8. 3:09 Another walking bassline, wacked out vocals, drums stop and start, bass and breathing? outro
9. 5:51 Swelling music, smooth instrumentation, quick drops down to raw vocals with stripped down accompaniment, unrequited love song, builds to solid guitars and screaming-ish vocals, ends with strange computer sounds
10. 3:15 Simple clicking drums (rim shots or snaps), vocal layering, whistling, no other instruments, charming little love song with oohs
11. 3:36 Chaotic, sliding guitar and vocal melody, a few long guitar solos throughout and a horn solo of some kind with no backing music, not much of a structure