Cassette Review // Fir Cone Children "Gearshifting" (Blackjack Illuminist Records)

https://blackjackilluministrecords.bandcamp.com/album/gearshifting

When listening to this new cassette by Fir Cone Children you are going to hear two different sounds.   At times this can feel rather melodic and dreamy, somewhere between a pop punk album and something along the similar lines of twee.   But as "Gearshifting" begins with that heavy blast of distortion, there is also something chaotic in here, where you just feel like it's raw, it's punk and it's up to no good.

The first song- "Let's Calm The Senses"- can be catchy but also fast paced.  There is a line which says "I don't wanna grow up so fast" and I think we've all felt like that at some point in our lives.  There is also this winding breakdown, showing the complexity of the sound.  As we go into "Madness!" there is still that feeling of pop, but it also feels like there are sort of surf riffs in here as well.  "Your Voice" has more of those retro type synths like the Breakfast Club.

Great guitar riffs exist throughout this cassette, with crunchy chords and by "Ghost In The Frame" we get down to the guitar notes of it all.  On the flip side we come in hot with dreamy bliss pop and then find our way into a faster paced sound with heys and it just can overall take on that feeling of punk.  Starts and stops make it feel like we're closer to grunge, somewhere between Pavement and Blur perhaps, and then we still stay dreamy as we embark into the trippy side of the guitar notes here as well.

What Fir Cone Children have created with this cassette is a sound which can be as loud and in your face as going to a punk show, but yet at the same time it feels as inviting and as much like it wants you to sing along as a pop punk show.  If you can imagine seeing a band such as All-American Rejects and then seeing a band like Sex Pistols, Fir Cone Children somehow manage to blend both of those feelings within the same song and it's something great on its own but even more remarkable together.