2 

Label: Self-released

Produced by: D.Sardy

Okay, well, it seems I’m officially getting old – when I cant listen to some fuck-laden skatepunk without rolling my eyes a bit at all the slacker cooldom of it. 

It surely starts with FIDLAR’s name, standing for ‘ fuck it dog, life’s a risk,’ but okay, I was young once too, and scribbled slogans and mantras in notebooks which surely would sound silly not only to me, currently, but also to today’s FIDLAR-listening youth, so, fair enough. And I don’t think I’m so get-off-my-lawn that I can’t appreciate juvenalia in my media, but I like for there to be… something else to it. 

And that something else is there on the opening and closing tracks of That’s Life, which show off the socal punksters quite fantastic ability to puree decades worth of pop rock into their own mighty brew of bombast, as well as some entertaining non-fuck laden lyrics about lost loves on Caterpillar, or some fuck-laden and somewhat cringey but acceptably rah rah anthems on the closing title track… 

Inbetween, though, is where I start to get some “I don’t get it” vibes, or feelings like I’ve heard this stuff done with a bit more smarts. Both ‘On Drugs’ and ‘FSU’ are loud and proud odes to over-indulgence, maybe partially tongue-in-cheek but without enough of that to hide a loud undercurrent of drugs-are-cool… which would also be fine if On Drugs wasn’t questionably recorded live, and mastered super tinny compared to the rest of the disc, and if FSU had a little more punch to it (it kind of just punches one punch, over and over). Both of these songs are fine; the former’s recording really makes it a toss-off, though, and the latter is a one-trick pony. Then there’s the completely baffling Sand on the Beach, which, in the digital version I have – which, I would note, is no longer on bandcamp – is butchered by chopping up what sounds like a good song for a faux soap opera sketch. And this isn’t, like, let a verse and chorus run – it’s truly stop and start; a few chords then back to the sketch. I will admit finding this sketch very amusing at first – it seems to be out of context snippets of generic lines that would belong in any given reality show, uttered with amusing sincerity by the bandmembers – but as it goes on, you realize it’s meant to be in context, in a way (like the lines are not nonsequitors – it’s one script), and it turns from clever into something more mundane. …Which seems representative.

Taste the Money is totally standard, no frills pop punk. Again – fine.

It’s all this fine-ness, along with the puzzling live track and sketch comedy, that tanked this for me, as it stacks up against those two great bookend tracks, the first of which really dives deep through Weezer, Bush, Hives, that dog., and a whole bunch of other grunge and alt rock, and makes for something insanely catchy, and also making proper use of producer Dave Sardy.

…Regarding whom, being the reason I bought this, also sounds like he’s maybe too old for this. Sardy cut his teeth on plenty of heavy rock and alt rock, so I get it, but he’s since transitioned to his own score work and a lot of lusher, or more ‘traditional’ bands. It’s not that his tendency towards a raw but polished sound isn’t a good fit here, I just don’t necessarily hear his guiding stamp – it comes across as a true for-hire job and not something he may’ve gotten deeply involved with. That’s wholly speculation of course, and apologies for the sweat he probably actually put into this, but besides opener Caterpillar (which nabs from bands Dave worked with…), the rest sounds good, for sure… though not as immersive as his better and best works.