En L’air – Dark Furs
En L’air- Dark Furs
Have you ever wanted to know how a female fronted indie pop trio from LA and the UK sounded like if you threw them down a deep well and forced them to play only three songs? Well they’ll curse you in the beginning but eventually they’ll play you the most “magnetic” album. All the way from Los Angeles comes a dream pop trio, Suzanne May, Chad Philipps and Nathaniel Meek, proclaiming themselves as Dark Furs just dished out an EP entitled En L’air which means “In The Air” in French.
The audacity of only releasing three songs is the very prowess of Dark Furs. Starting with the first song “See Her”, Suzzane begins effortlessly with her careless misty voice for the first verse, she then quickly changes to a higher tone to deliver the hypnotic chorus of “Beep bob pap, pap poo poh” (sorry i could not find the lyrics for this song) but it’s pop chorus done right. Halfway through the song it becomes apparent that she uses vibrato on most of her verses which also acts as pre-chorus of the song. I love “See Her” chorus the most and her slow bouncing vocals echoing throughout the track really introduced you to Dark Fur’s signature.
Magnetic Man, their second song starts out with bass guitar riffs. Suzzane is beginning to stretch her voice like an elastic band so erratically, I was only wondering when it’ll snap. However her voice goes from mezzo-soprano all the way to full soprano. basically this means that she knows what her voice is capable of and is whipping it like a circus lion to her dark melodious fantasy. Trust me you’ll love this song it’s like she’s tickling you musically with her voice. Tickle, tickle tickle!
“…even artists that are aided by auto-tune simply cannot beat the natural “pixie dust” voice of Suzzane May.”
The last song starts out with the same bass beat but now Suzanne’s voice is going wild to the point where you’ll swear there are two Suzanne May in the recording studio, one on each side of the ribbon mic singing while exchanging sly smiles with each other. I know that I am praising Suzanne’s voice to high heaven here but that’s because she does have a grade A pop-rock voice that is rarely seen in the past few years, even artists that were aided by auto-tune simply cannot beat the natural “pixie dust” voice of Suzzane.
Chad Philipps and Suzanne May
There are a few down sides to her voice though, mainly is the lyrics which could not be understood well, but i have a feeling for a dream-pop EP the lyrics were not the most important thing here. The reliance on the same bass line that’s carrying the whole EP is also somewhat repetitive and was also present and the bane of their last album “Dark Furs EP” I am hopping that their next LP would have more creativity in the bass line instead. Overall you’ll be a fool to not at least give this quick three songs a listen, plus you can even download it for free since it’s pay what you want and as always support the artists if you think their good, but I can guarantee you this band has a very bright future ahead. It’s about time Dark Furs stop releasing EP and start making more LP instead.
~Max Chee
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/DARKFURS
Bandcamp: http://darkfurs.bandcamp.com/