Fryars
Dark Young Hearts
Release Date: Sep 21, 2009
Genre(s): Electronic
Record label: Bandstocks
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Album Review: Dark Young Hearts by Fryars
Very Good, Based on 2 Critics
Based on rating 8/10
Synthesisers are ever present in the modern age. You would have though the Eighties would have killed them off, but now they dominate, in this pretend wave of female popstars and in the synthpop indiestars, pretending this didn't get boring twenty years back. frYars, one London man named Ben Garrett plus friends, clearly recognises the mysterious power of the synth.
Based on rating 3/5
What the world probably doesn't need now is another young Londoner enveloping himself in the electronic music of the 1980s, but Ben Garrett, aka Fryars, has made a compelling debut. Bearing the influence of Depeche Mode, among others – Dave Gahan even crops up to sing backing vocals on Visitors – Young Hearts is a yinning and yanging mixture of bright pop (think Pet Shop Boys), dark melodies and lyrical themes. Though brimming with ideas, Garrett is let down by a few clunking lyrics ("I'm in insurance, I fuck up my future") and some odd vocal intonation that makes bits of songs sound unintentionally comic.