Fine Motor – Phantom Power lp
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Fine Motor – Phantom Power lp
Since their 2017 debut LP (also on Exotic Fever), the band has garnered comparisons to Built to Spill, the Breeders, and Yo La Tengo. Phantom Power is a more sweeping, cinematic album than their earlier work, conducive to lonely desert highways.
You can credit the somber shift to the pandemic. The album was written and recorded during the peak of lockdown, and is thematically darker, apocalyptic even, exploring feelings of isolation and societal collapse. In “Watch the Spider Eat the Fly,” for example, drummer / singer Casey Bell (author of award-winning short story collection Little Fury) laments, “Oh what a joy to be / born in the land of the free / run out of air to breathe.”
And in “Frank,” Bell’s breathy, wistful voice imagines a bleak future: “For all the ways you try / to hold your spirit right / I know you’ll break in two like me.” While the album is thematically moody, certain songs receive a brighter treatment. Perhaps the most upbeat
track is “Highway Moon,” a persona song mocking a tech tyrant bent on lunar colonization. Complete with a dance beat and horn section, the song feels triumphant, anthemic, and rife with pop sensibilities
due in large part to guitarist Chris Mays’s nimble counter-melodies. As a trio with an indie rock background, Fine Motor is generally an exercise in minimalism and restraint. But the inability to play shows freed the band to expand: cello instead of bass guitar, saxophone and trumpet in place of lead guitar, and a nine-foot grand piano where
an upright would have featured on earlier albums. In the world of Fine Motor, the album is lush, verging on orchestral. The album’s earthy aesthetic was cultivated by the band’s pianist Dan Morse (who regularly contributes gear reviews to Tape Op: The Creative
Music Recording Magazine) through the use of vintage-inspired gear, some of it home made.