Release Date: March 25, 2014
Great artists are made by taking risks. They will either mesmerize their audience or piss them off completely. Faces on Film’s new album Elite Lines brilliantly captures different genres of music ranging from cathartic indie-rock to experimental, pop kitsch.
An artist who has the audacity to make challenging pop music, something you don’t listen to on the radio every day, should be commended.
Talented singer/songwriter Mike Fiore, under the moniker Faces on Film, entices and provokes his listeners by drawing on different types of rhythms, classic guitar solos, rich bass lines, and irregular song structures.
Fiore is also a master in seducing or charming you (your choice) with his intense, passionate voice.
On the first track “Percy,” he sounds creepy and desperate as he croons, “I heard some say to you/Her song… say/Give/Some say, for days, heart of gold/But you didn’t say/Search alone/So maybe you and me/We/Girl/Search, search, search, search, search.” His desperation is riveting. Fiore comes off as awkward, creepy, and nonsensical as his slow and hollow voice stresses every word, making it hard to ignore him.
“Percy” is a brilliant track partly because it creates a sort of sexual tension. The lyrics are open-ended. Is he fantasizing about that woman? It’s hard to say. Fiore speaks more clearly with his music than his lyrics.
He ingeniously tosses the typical verse-chorus-verse structure out the window on “Percy,” shaking it up with polyrhythmic jungle beats rumbling in the background, using the entire band to fill the rich, melodious chorus with expanded beats, playing a sliding guitar solo, and broadening the depth of the song with lush synth notes.
He throws you off once again with the title track, a vibrant, acoustic guitar-driven song.
It’s a less-than-two-minute instrumental piece, but it leaves a lasting impression. Fiore takes a simple guitar melody, expands on it, enriches it with colorful notes, polishes it, and then with loving fingers sticks into your head, where it stays lodged long after the music dies away.
Describing “Percy” and “Elite Lines” doesn’t do justice to the album, not even close. Elite Lines can, in some ways, be compared to Miles Davis’ The Complete Bitches Brew Sessions. Fiore rips apart mainstream pop music and creates new songs that are dynamic, unconventional, and challenging. It spills with complex emotions, uncompromising creativity, and brilliant imagination that for once breaks the norm of how songs are written. Already, Elite Lines is one of the best albums of the year so far.
Faces on Film – Elite Lines tracklist:
- “Percy”
- “Elite Lines”
- “The Rule”
- “Your Old One”
- “Bad Star”
- “Heartspeed”
- “Daytime Nowhere”
- “Rake the Dust”
