Fragile Gang is a band from El Paso, Texas, their new album A Plausible and Desirable Future takes its name from the novel Exit West by Mohsin Hamid. The songs on the album share some of the book’s topics. As you may expect from a band from their location, the socially conscious songs are influenced by a number of subjects, including migration.
Indie/Noisy Pop/Shoegaze…
The band describe themselves as “indie/sometimes noisy pop/shoegaze” a description that pretty much accurately sums up what I hear when I listen.
Good to Go opens the album opens with a vibrating electric hum, pulsating with energy, building and crackling before it bursts into a mellifluous combination of driving guitar, crashing drums and sonorous melodic vocal.
Move on a couple of tracks and Wake Up Sunshine lives up to its name. A joyous indie anthem full of jangly guitars and basking in a warm glow.
Elsewhere, wall of sound effect laden guitars riff along at pace on Never Know Which Way to Go, with a refrain doffing its cap to Glasgow’s own West Coast indie-pop Gods, Teenage Fanclub,
Hypnotic
Tribal drums drive the hypnotic rhythm throughout Now It’s You, overlaid with squealing distortion and a vocal reminiscent of My Bloody Valentine’s Bilinda Butcher.
And that is just the first four tracks…
The remainder of the album continues to blend the influences, tracks like Voices Calling and Suspension taking the shoegaze blueprint and stamping their sound on top, the tunes layering and building to a cacophonous climax. While on some of the more introspective delicate moments on the album, there are times when the music reflects bands like Galaxie 500 – particularly on Night Time in Japan and Bedroom Show.
Anthemic
The album ends on an epic anthem, positive and forward-looking in Always See the Light. Reaching a crashing pinnacle, the song fades leaving us as they came in with the vibrating electric hum.
Watch the video for the Wake Up Sunshine here:
You can stream or purchase the bands album from Bandcamp.
Fragile Gang on Facebook