Fight Like Apes - Fight Like Apes

From the opening bounce of ‘I Am Not A Merryman’, all hopping synths and joyful adventure, Fight Like Apes’ self-titled third album takes you away to a land of multi-coloured glee and decorated discovery. The arcade introduction is a gentle one, rolling backdrops and captivating welcomes holding your hand before the Irish four-piece confidently bound onto the next level. The gunshot drop at the start of ‘Crouching Bees’ starts the band down a path taking in shimmering excess, traversed obstacles and heartfelt narration. The bratty sucker punch of ‘Pop Itch’ gets under your skin while the back and forth vocal dance that drives ‘Didya’ is a grinning face-to-face confrontation. Whatever their method of attack, Fight Like Apes have you firmly in their sights.

The skipping synth that shadows the album is a suggestive beast, bending your ear and whispering notions of careless abandon while the vocals stomp across the landscape. “I look up oh so high,” starts the one-two sensation of ‘Pretty Keen On Centerfolds. “I take a swing at a fly and say ‘Daddy, why was I born’,” it continues, a laid back existential crisis. It’s this relaxed angle, delivered with pointed determination, which whisks ‘Fight Like Apes’ skywards. Their deadly cocktail of joy and human realization never more potent or as moreish.

During ‘Maevis Beacon Annihilation’ the cry of “I should have left this disgusting town by now,” masks a frustrated desire to have achieved more while the mournful finale of ‘Carousel’ bathes in dejection, “All you ever seem to be is fighting, bleeding, blinding.” Fight Like Apes don’t wallow for long though as ‘Carousel’ is swiftly set alight with a nostalgia-fuelled firework display and as the dust settles, the glittering aftermath is the perfect way to bring ‘Fight Like Apes’, an album that can’t help but twinkle, to an end.