Font – ‘Strange Burden’ album review: A sonically confused debut album
THE SKINNY: A debut album is a pretty daunting thing for artists to come to terms with. Often, groups will spend years honing their craft, playing live shows and touring before even thinking about heading into a studio. As a result, debut albums often feature artists at their most honest and expressive, before they have been jaded by the harsh realities of the music industry. On the other hand, debut records can also be a confused amalgamation of every idea a band or artist has ever had. Unfortunately, Strange Burden, the debut release from Austin’s Font falls into the latter category.
After hitting the Austin scene back in 2022, Font quickly grew a reputation for their eclectic and chaotic sound. Thanks in part to bandmembers Jack Owens, Thom Waddill and their time playing in a college cover band, Font amassed an incredibly broad body of influences, many of which can be heard plainly throughout Strange Burden. Over the course of the record, Font move sporadically from old-school post-punk, to driving dance music and brooding self-reflection. Oftentimes, Font embody the sound of bands passed, with tracks like ‘Hey Kekulé’ particularly reminiscent of earlier groups like A Certain Ratio.
Of course, there is no issue with having a broad palette of influences to draw from, but across Strange Burden, it feels as if Font are simply throwing these influences at the wall and seeing what sticks. There are few moments on the album which feel particularly original or noteworthy; even the high points of the record feel as though they have been lifted from modern post-punk groups like Squid, which have not been approached with any kind of nuance or adaptability. As a result, the tracklisting of Font’s debut feels discordant and hastily thrown together, lacking cohesion as a full album rather than a collection of unrelated songs.
The production of Strange Burden, largely undertaken by Waddill along with multi-instrumentalist Anthony Laurence, also lets the record down at points. For instance, there are tracks like ‘Natalie’s Song’, which you can envisage being a definite highlight of Font’s live performance but, on the record, the sound of the song falls flat, causing it to sound underwhelming and unremarkable. Nevertheless, there are some truly interesting concepts explored across the album, and Font certainly show promise for the future, despite the confused sonic mess that permeates through much of their debut.
For fans of: Putting the lapels on your coat up and pretending to be dark and mysterious in front of the Cafe Nero barista.
A concluding comment from Ben’s housemate: “They should turn up the heating in the studio, the singer sounds like he’s shivering the whole time, poor lad.”
Strange Burden track by track:
Release date: July 12th | Producer: Thom Waddill and Anthony Laurence | Label: Acrophase Records
‘The Golden Calf’: The first track on a debut album is a tricky thing to get right. Unfortunately, Font’s eclectic sound gets the better of them here, culminating in a sonically confused track which never really gets off the ground. [2/5]
‘Hey Kekulé’: On this danceable post-punk track, the band starts to hit their stride. The incessant cowbell and aggressive delivery evoke the sounds of early Factory Records and, while it isn’t the most original sound, it is pretty infectious. [3/5]
‘Looking at Engines’: Font demonstrate their ability to switch up the mood and tempo of a track in a blink of an eye, beginning as a brooding post-punk track and ending as a generic indie rock anthem from five years ago. [2.5/5]
‘It’: In this driving, danceable electronic track, Font draw from their seemingly endless resources of energy. This is among the strongest tracks from across the album, though its position in the tracklisting is a strange choice. [3/5]
‘Sentence I’: This is potentially the most ‘normal’ track on Font’s debut, reminiscent of that discordant post-punk sound repopularised by the likes of Squid during the late 2010s. Again, the band struggles to establish an original voice, but it’s easy to find yourself tapping your foot along to the beat. [3/5]
‘Cattle Prod’: This song seems an odd inclusion on the album in the context of the tracklisting. As opposed to the danceable electronic post-punk which has preceded it, this six-minute track sounds as if James Arthur is auditioning for Foals. [1/5]
‘Natalie’s Song’: Once again, it appears as though Font paid no attention to the order of tracks on this album, as the closer jerks audiences suddenly from the atmosphere created by ‘Cattle Prod’. The closer is not a particularly bad track, and it sounds as if it would be great in a live setting, but it does feel somewhat lacking on the record. [2.5/5]
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