I wrote about ASIWYFA's second album, Gangs, a few years ago. I'd not long seen them for the first time and they'd blown me away live. A short while later they released All Hail Bright Futures and I picked a copy up in Banquet after a period of not buying many records. Gangs introduced the idea of the songs having vocals in a very simple way (no actual words), so it wasn't too surprising to hear vocals at the start of All Hail Bright Futures - the line "The sun is in our eyes" repeated throughout Eunoia and Big Things Do Remarkable; it worked.
The surprise for me was quite how many of the songs on All Hail Bright Futures would use vocals - Like a Mouse, Ambulance, The Stay Golden, Ka Ba Ta Bo Da Ka and Young Brave Minds (it's almost easier to count the songs without lyrics, which is a strange thing to say for an instrumental band). It mostly works - they tread that fine line between using some vocals but not too many fairly well. but fall off a couple of times. It doesn't work for me on Ambulance where the band simply spell out the word "ambulance" over and over again. I'm mostly on-board with their style of math-rock, but that songs always feels like they're spelling a word to music simply for the fact that seems like a math-rock thing to do. The trumpet is a nice touch though. Ka Ba Ta... suffers a similar problem, but is more forgettable.
In the years that have followed buying this album, I have tended to go to Gangs when I want to listen to the band. I like All Hail Bright Futures, but the vocals are thing thing that tends to put me off; it's proof you can't please everyone - I got so excited at the hint of vocals on Gangs, but this amount is too much for me! I think if I had the two albums on shuffle that'd be the right balance, although you'd have to group the parts of The Golden Stay together.
I've since seen ASIWYFA a couple more time and they never fail to impress live. At ArcTanGent this year they should have been the headliner on the Saturday night - I think everyone there would have happily watched them for twice as long and well into the night. Much like the first and subsequent times I saw them, they brought the party.
Format: 12", picture sleeve
Tracks: 12
Cost: £15 new
Bought: Banquet Records
When: 18/07/13
Colour: Black
Etching: none
mp3s: Download code
