Albums2010 #57: Torches

Foster The People is one of those awesome bands that showed up on my radio with Pumped Up Kicks a couple of years back. It was one of those songs you always turned up when it came on the radio dial and attempted (in my case usually badly) to whistle along too. But thanks to the magic of Spotify, a listen to their debut album, Torches shows that they're pretty damn bad-ass to be totally frank about it. There's a lot of "Wow, this is really good. Like REALLY good...' when you listen to it.

But how to describe them? Wikipedia (the font of all knowledge) describes them thusly:

Indie pop, alternative rock, indietronica, alternative dance, neo-psychedelia

I'd say this is a pretty fair description- though I have no idea what neo-psychedelia sounds is. (You read the term and you think bath salts might possibly be involved somehow, which makes you slightly uncomfortable. Am I right?) Broadly speaking, I'd say FTP is solidly alternative with dollops of electronica thrown in for good measure.

My personal knowledge of this band was limited to the radio play of Pumped Up Kicks until I came across the video for Helena Beat which was being shown on some 'all music, all the time' channel that isn't MTV' and was basically a version of Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome with a bunch of post-apocalyptic kids running around the joint. It got my attention right away, needless to say. I dug a little more. Don't Stop (Color On The Walls) started getting radio airplay and that was awesome and then Spotify came along and I got to listen to the whole album.

A cursory glance of FTP's Wikipedia page shows that they were careful not to rush with the rest of this album just to cash in on the success of Pumped Up Kicks and I think that decision was the right one to make. This is probably one of the most complete albums I've listened too in quite awhile. Every song is good. It's one of those albums you can start and just let go all the way through without having to skip any songs and I don't know about you, kids, but that's my definition of 'AWESOME' and 'EXCELLENT.'

Overall: Call It What You Want, Helena Beat and Warrant are probably the best songs you haven't heard on this album. But the rest are pretty damn good too. A short, compact little album at 10 songs, it's a perfect package of alternative bon-bons for your ear. I'd say **** out of ****.