FIDLAR - Too

If FIDLAR’s 2013 self-titled debut was a hyperactive teen, its scruffy garage-punk rushing from high to high via, well, cheap beer and cocaine – ‘Too’, its follow-up is the inevitable late-20s comedown. Ostensibly, it’s a document of frontman Zac Carper’s descent into, and rise towards recovery from, drug addiction. Where song titles point - ‘Overdose’, ‘Sober’, ‘Bad Medicine’ - lyrics follow; by the umpteenth time he repeats the line “one day, I’ll be coming home to you” during ‘Stupid Decisions’, it’s clear there’s neither a ‘home’ nor a ‘you’ for him to return to.

His pain, although obvious (concentrate a little too hard and ‘Too’ is one hell of a dark listen), is also universal. “Where do I belong? Where do I go?” he asks on the appropriately titled ‘Why Generation’. For too long we’ve relied on Generation X-ers for our catharsis-via-music: ‘Too’ is dripping in millennial angst.

“How the hell are we supposed to know / how to live in the 21st Century / when every move you make / everyone can see,” he asks. It’s confessional; self-deprecating; melodramatic. “I’m getting older and I’m freaking out / ‘cause I got nothing to show and I’m still fucking broke.”