White Rabbits
Fort Nightly
[Say Hey; 2007]
Rating: 8.1
Fort Nightly is that rare debut where potential isn't the operative word-- White Rabbits deliver the whole package straight away. The NYC six-piece writes great songs that merge rhythmic intensity with grandiose melodrama in a seamless and inventive package. Opening the album with a sinister left-handed piano riff, "Kid on My Shoulders" features steam engine drums that give the song's many hooks ample chance to sink in. It's a track that keeps getting catchier as it goes, ending with a choral coda that has a monumental sweep. Opening an album with a headrush like that will be a good strategy from now until humans finally wipe themselves out, but plenty of albums peter out after this kind of track. Fort Nightly doesn't-- thanks to the band's enormous bag of musical tricks.
The piano, especially the lower octaves, is hugely important to a lot of the group's best tracks, though you might not realize it at first. It slots well into the band's big, spacious sound, and it helps ground the multi-layered vocals and keep the frequently surf-inspired guitars at bay. The piano also frequently adds what Duke Ellington once referred to as "the Latin tinge"-- its lead on "Navy Wives" provides a tango accent to the song's subtle ska rhythm, one of many tracks that sport a major second-wave ska influence. As far as that's concerned, this band is a lot more Specials than Madness, keeping its content mostly dark and serious rather than jaunty and jovial.
As important as the piano is, though, the band's biggest weapon is the vocals. The leads are strongly melodic, with just a slight gravelly edge, and the production puts them front and center without forgetting everything else. Around the lead vocals you get everything from doubling that simply fortifies the melodies to soft "ooh-aah" backing harmonies to weirdness like the freakish falsetto choir that pops up twice on of reggae-spiked "March of Camels", accompanied by a nicely funky staccato piano riff.
The simple doubling on the fractured verses of the title track heightens the uneasy atmosphere created by the positively evil piano undertow and chunky march/funk drums. The song breaks out of the dark forest with a stately piano melody in the middle, only to be sucked back in again. Fort Nightly can be appreciated both for its overarching vibe and for minute details such as the very subtle, hair-raising organ part that perks up just long enough in the second verse of "Dinner Party" to shake the song out of its rhythmic comfort zone. It's a great debut for a band with an impressive, distinctive sound.
-Joe Tangari, June 04, 2007
http://www.myspace.com/whiterabbits
Review by Jo-Ann Greene
Vague recollections of a surreal 1940's movie scene eddy up. Six musicians enter a room, take their seats, and begin to play...six different pieces of music. They stop, look at each other, nod, and begin playing again...all different songs. They exchange sheet music, but cacophony still ensues. The memory is dim, but the White Rabbits bring it vividly to life with their strange, but brilliant, Fort Nightly album.The sextet sashay in with the Latin flavored "Kid on My Shoulders", a track infused with a 50s feel, but a dark and dangerous atmosphere that evokes The Specials, and lyrics that put even Terry Hall's most obscure lyrics to shame. "March of the Camels conjures that band's specter even more strongly with its oppressive atmosphere, solid reggae bass line, and eerie cries which echo of "Ghost Town". In contrast, "Dinner Party" sets a table for the Fun Boy 3 with its rhythm heavy arrangement. And like the Fun Boys, its the Rabbits's rhythms that are the driving force of the band's sound. Many of them are jazz or big band inspired, but not exclusively, as the martial drums that power "Take a Walk Around the Table" or the Afro-beats that patter across "I Used to Complain Now I Don't illustrate. But the big, bold beats are often juxtaposed against champagne styled piano, which in "Complain"'s case slides slyly into ragtime. If Liberace joined a swing band, and enlisted a guitarist addicted to eclecticism (Western, surf flecked, and C&W (included), it might sound a bit like this. Yet somehow, The White Rabbits pull this surreal set straight out of the hat, because for all its fractured elements, the group still magically conjure up coherent, complete songs. As lyrically eclectic and clever as it is musically, this is one fascinating album. As unique an experience as the Fun Boy 3's eponymous debut was in its day, and just as mesmerizing.
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