Amusement Parks On Fire - An Archaea

by Dave Goodwin

published: 23 / 8 / 2021

Label: EGB records
Format: CD

Excellent fourth album and first in ten years From Nottingham-based shoegazing outfit Amusement Parks On Fire

Review

Yet another of a glut of artists to come out of the wonderful city of Nottingham is Amusement Parks On Fire, the brainchild of singer/multi-instrumentalist/song-writer Michael Feerick. Spawned from the East Midland City’s shoegaze scene in 2004, Amusement Parks On Fire have released three albums before this masterpiece 'An Archaea' which was recorded at The Pentagon, the band’s underground dugout rehearsal studio by multi-instrumentalist and tour manager Gavin Poole. Strangely this is the first outing from the band in over ten years after Feerick formed a duo, Young Light, with Micah Calabrese of LA band Giant Drag. Originally the band was set up as a live act with Daniel Knowles (guitar), Pete Dale (drums), Jez Cox (bass) and John Sampson (keyboards/samples), and a little later they were joined by tour manager Poole (bass) and Joe Hardy (keyboards/guitar). The album's starter is 'Old Salt', a two-sided affair sonically with the track suddenly bursting into blistering noise from the harmonies that precede it. The spooky 'No Fission' creeps in like a ghostly apparition. and after these two tracks I was thinking they were like a heavier version of Jesus Jones with a slight Charlatans edge to it. The heavy-sounding 'Diving Bell rings through the melancholy until the album returns to a more shoegazing sound with 'Breakers'. My favourite track 'Aught Can Wait goes back to the late 1980s and sounds even more like the aforementioned Jesus Jones. The title track is a beast of a listen, and the offering is brought to an end in a rather more sedate style with Blue Room' 'An Archaea' appears in a gatefold sleeve of spectacular colour which houses a psychedelic inner sleeve. It is very well done indeed which matches the sound of this album to a tee. I keep returning to a heavy Jesus Jones but they also have some of the sound another Nottingham sound Six by Seven you are also somewhere in the room. Punchy in some quarters and sedate in others, this is a joyous outing from a band that will surely get more recognition with this release.