3 out of 5

Label: self-released

Produced by: J. Robbins

Fotocrime are 80s, synthy post-punk. They’re the bands you either find cool or relegate to a particular era with some dismissiveness, and whose edges could be shorn off to eventually produce stuff like Depeche Mode. So think Joy Division, or Siousxie, and then allow for the crisper, more organic sounds of modern production. If I tell you that’s pretty much all Fotocrime is, it’s too obvious I belong to the latter grouping above: this is not a sound / genre I have ever gotten much traction with, and Ryan Patterson’s flat affectation and his tendency towards repetition in his writing already held back much of my appreciation of Coliseum, so… I’m not the target audience here.

I do think J. Robbins helps to give the music an edge, balancing the electronic 80s vibe with a pretty killer low-end fullness, and also brings warmth to Patterson’s voice. Either Always Hell or Plate Glass Eyes would be pretty good songs with that setup, accepting my quips about repetitive lyrics and song structure – there’s enough oomph in the way the tracks ebb and flow to get my head bobbing. However, paired together, the (perceived) weaknesses of this formula are doubled down on, because one song is just a faster version of the other, mirrored down to how vaguely the lyrics both describe… doomy stuff, with Always Hell just looking outward, and Plate Glass Eyes looking inward, but both seeing the same thing.

Final track Tectonic Shift is a bit better, pairing some explosive volume with its monotone first half to good effect, and limiting the lyrics to just a few lines that don’t get repeated ad nauseum helps to maintain that explosiveness.