Album Review FIDLAR - FIDLAR

FIDLAR recorded this, their self-titled debut, at home. That fact in itself is, of course, not particularly notable. It’s probably now more common than not for an artist to have a ‘home studio’, even if it is in the same vein as spare bedrooms becoming the ‘home office’. Or just standing in front of a laptop while asking everyone else to be quiet.

And, in any case, for these boys, ‘home’ is a converted studio in Los Angeles’ Highland Park . But, then, that same home is also a venue that’s hosted parties so raucous the band have apparently been forced to cover the walls with newspaper to prevent further graffiti incidents. FIDLAR are the ultimate house party band. Even better, the rambunctiousness of this, their and friends’ hospitality has bled right through to the sounds captured on the four-piece’s first full effort.

Those who fell head-over-heels for the band’s middle-finger-throwing slacker anthem ‘Cheap Beer’ in mid-2012 will find everything to love. Imagine if Nickelodeon had made Skins: baseball caps, skateboards, ripped stonewash jeans. Girls and boys both looking like Clarissa Darling in her mismatched heyday – or at least resembling the ambiguous one from Hanson. Drugs, alcohol and sexual references everywhere.

With its Ramones-via-The Golden State garage punk, it’s brilliantly noisy in all the best places (‘White On White’, ‘Wait For The Man’) and yet not afraid to tone down on occasion (‘Gimme Something’). It’s also wilfully and wonderfully cheeky throughout – not only can the titular Max (Keuhn, drums) not surf (er, ‘Max Can’t Surf’) but “he’s a ginger.”

In short – never has the putrid stench of house parties – stale lager, weed, sweat – smelled so exciting.