Artist: Fools Garden
Title: Captain… Coast Is Clear
Genre: Pop Rock
Release Date: 26th November 2021
Label: Jazzhaus Records
Album Review
Here’s the good news. This will be an even more unbiased review than those I usually turn in. Because I’m that one person on the planet who hasn’t heard of FOOLS GARDEN. I’ve not heard ‘Lemon Tree’, their massive, one-hit-wonder smash hit from 1995. This means I am unaware of the comparisons made at the time to every huge band on the planet that had ever existed, including a little-known English beat combo once known as THE BEATLES. I’m completely ignorant of the fact that the band struggled to write a follow-up, and as expectations grew and sales diminished, tensions came to the fore and the whole thing disintegrated, and dried up like an orchard in a drought. And I couldn’t possibly know that here they are again, giving it yet another go, one last spin of the rotten roulette wheel of Rock‘n’Roll, hoping to maybe chance a quick glimpse of the glory days once more.
So, with all that stuff I don’t know, it’s been something of a revelation to come at this new album completely blind. It occasionally oozes with a certain amount of cheese - ‘Outta Love’ is a pure Brie-coated Euro-Electro-Pop, complete with 70s bass, “Ooooo Ooooo Ooooo’s” and a nursery rhyme synth hook, which would be utterly dreadful if it didn’t sound like ELO, and has a melody that does show an ease and sophistication with a melody that has to be admired. ‘Electrify’ takes itself much more seriously and sounds a billion years more up to date (we are in the late 90s now I should think) and again, it’s hard to dislike, scattering little shimmery bits of stardust here and there, and refusing to do what you fully expect it to do. ABBA could have written it. ‘Fire’ is a big ballad of a thing, all closed eyes and clenched fists, ‘Beautiful’ as breezy and bouncy and light a pop song as it’s possible to create. It could advertise detergent. You know the one… happy family with teeth whiter than their washing, probably flying a kite or something. Lifestyle stuff. And then there is dreamy piano led closing track ‘Those We Lost At Sea’ building itself up into a gentle frenzy. Impressive stuff.
I just had a sneaky listen to ‘Lemon Tree’. It’s not very good really. These songs are much better. They’re not going to blow your world apart, but for mature, easy on the ear quality songwriting, this is dependable and reliable and ought to give FOOLS GARDEN not so much a second chance, but a new lease of life. You sort of feel like they deserve it.
Tracklist
01. An Endless Sea
02. Electrify
03. Highest Mountain
04. Shimmering Heights / All You’ve Ever Wanted
05. Home Again
06. Outta Love
07. Fireflies
08. Fire
09. Higher
10. Here In Your Arms
11. Beautiful
12. House Of Cards
13. Those We Lost At Sea
Line-up
Peter Freudenthaler
Volker Hinkel
Dirk Blümlein
Gabriel Holz
Thorsten Kiefer
Jan Hees
Website
https://foolsgarden.de / https://www.facebook.com/FoolsGarden
Cover Picture
Rating
Music: 7
Sound: 7
Total: 7 / 10
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