Frontback – Don’t Mind The Noise

Frontback

Don’t Mind The Noise

by Sergio Andrés at 08 October 2019, 5:58 PM

Straight-forward Rock N' Roll bands are the new black these days. FRONTBACK is a Swedish wonder who plays a CHEAP TRICK influenced Rock N' Roll, with particular proto-Punk flavor of groups like HANOI ROCKS. What I do find interesting is Anlo Front´s vocal timbre, which reminds one of my favorite singers: Grace Slick. She is the forefront of their sound, much like the American band HALESTORM.

Besides that, decisive factor and their Rock format, there is not too much to overanalyze in this release, harmonic-wise. The songs are catchy, correctly executed, but for my dislike, the modern type of production floods the whole record (Not too many dynamics, almost inaudible cymbals, etc). Also, “Let's Play Rock'n'Roll” has that twangy diction and intonation of Gwen Stefani, which I genuinely hate.

Despite the cons above, and digging into some other tunes, I found most of the material very similar; arrangements and styles are quite even. Perhaps the song “Movin' On” conveys more FM potential than the others, as a matter of fact, it was the track that stuck in my head the most, plus, it has a wicked tempo change at the end (I don´t have my metronome handy, but I´m pretty sure this goes a little bit faster towards the last seconds).

The hidden gem is “Sunny Days” it has all the bubblegum elements that I adore from people like ANDREW WK, RAMONES, or JOAN JETT, and it is fairly noticeable that they stretched their music muscle to come with an infectious melody (and excellent guitar solo for that matter). Another cool aspect is that this particular song screams band effort, rather than an Anlo Front´s band like other tunes. Its energy made me think about RUSH´s "Everyday Glory." I loved the fade-out ending. This song should be in a movie soundtrack, period.

The final track evidences the compositional pop chops of these unit, they should bury the Gwen Stefani similarities and go for that “Sunny Days” direction.

Songwriting: 6
Originality: 6
Memorability: 6
Production: 6