Fool’s Gold - Leave No Trace

Between 2009’s self-titled debut and this, Fool’s Gold’s second album, founding members Luke Top and Lewis Pesacov reduced the membership of their band from (at times) fifteen down to a more conventional five. It seems in doing so that they, perhaps unwittingly, similarly downsized the outlet for the number of ideas present in their music.

‘Fool’s Gold’ was a document of creative musical types meeting, swapping records and making music about every single one. It felt almost overstuffed at only eight tracks in length, probably because every track was at least four minutes long and seemed like a progression of ideas rather than a structure of them. ‘Leave No Trace’ on the other hand seems to reflect the band’s more condensed condition, working from a (relatively) limited sonic palette towards a more recognisably pop aesthetic. And it sometimes works. Opener ‘The Dive’ is one of the year’s best straight-up tunes, with Pesacov’s chiming, Johnny Marr-esque guitar lines and Top’s distant New Wave warbles (sung in English, rather than Hebrew, this time around) married to the afro-pop sound that characterised much of their first album to joyous effect. ‘Wild Window’, the album’s first single, follows suit with stabbing bass inflections providing the backdrop to a jerking, dancier sound then might have been expected.

But as the album continues, more and more sounds creep in. ‘Balmy’ holds an almost dub-like gauze over the more familiar tropes, ‘Narrow Sun’ begins with the almost antique haze of echoes that coated Brandon Flowers’ anthemic pipes on ‘Hot Fuss’ and by album closer ‘Lanterns’ there’s an uncomfortable union of a ‘50s slow dance rhythm section and a languid flute solo. The initial joy at hearing Fool’s Gold as a tight unit fades when you realise that the reduction in numbers hasn’t focused the band, but simply made it harder for them to implement their (admittedly impressive) number of influences. Whereas the sheer number of band members on the first album if not excused, then explained the lack of groundedness in their writing, the fact that you know this is a conventionally-sized band simply chucking new ideas into the mix halfway through an album just seems a little lazy. ‘Leave No Trace’ has clearly been made by music listeners with knowledge far beyond most of us, it just doesn’t seem like those same listeners are such great songwriters.