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The jangle pop often acquainted with REM has a new occupant,
that of the trio Mighty Fairly, comprised of lead singer/songwriter
Mischa Suemnig and multi-instrumentalists and backup vocalists
Kellie Nitz and Justin Bell. The trio's debut album
Perfectly Good Airplanes, produced by Fiction, has
reflections of neo-folk dreamers and baroque-pop confections recalling
the '60s soft pop esthetics of Ricky Nelson, The Yardbirds,
and The Everly Brothers, but insulated with a more modern
sustenance of sunny pop. It is odd that the music has a sunny
pop countenance when the lyrical content is about the process
of withdrawing from a relationship and the emotional conflicts
which surface from the separation; like retaliation, reconciliation,
and feeling one's way to true acceptance of the circumstances.
Lyrically, the album serves one purpose and that is to express
the overwhelming emotions that erupt due to separating oneself
from another. Musically, the album is an indie-pop botanical likened
to The Boy Least Likely To and The Unicorns, adorning
guitar and bass lines with fragments of glockenspiel chimes, bowers
of Wurlitzer keys, and tendrils of electric piano jitters doused
in channels of keytar and African marimba textures. The soft tempo
and sunny pop disposition of "Like A Ghost" is in opposition
to the sorrowful lyrics: "You said it was love/ Faithful
and blind/ You finish me off like a sentence…Our time together
is fading like a ghost…You're out the door like a sprinter/
Kiss me again one more time before the road…Didn't think
we'd end so fast like a ghost."
The track "Superheroes" also shrouds sad lyrics with
elegant neo-folk acoustics and gentle vocals similar to Matt
Costa as Suemnig sings: "In my mind you are my lover/
In my mind we are together/ Fighting violence like superheroes/
And Sunday we'd save the world." The lyrical phrases are
romantic and sometimes use expletives to express retaliation from
those emotions that wish to stay in the relationship. Though the
lyrics show a tug-of-war conflict emotionally, the music has a
jangle pop shine and neo-folk psychedelics creating an optimistic
glow like a rainbow around woeful feelings.
The heavy bass grooves of "Wake Up" have a So Cal smoothness
like The Beach Boys, while the avant-pop textures of "Last
Stand Started' permeate the mid-tempo number with a myriad of
tints gelled similarly to Baby Teeth. There is a youthful
innocence in the music, like in the songs "Lackluster"
and "Dosage" which have a hopeful bounce in the pop
rhythms. The '60s mod-ish acoustic guitar plucks on "It's
A Shame" and "Do You" are stylishly modern and
the jangly tambourine beats of "Give Up" reinforce the
band's attachment to '60s soft pop. The tender drum and guitar
strokes for "Movin' On" perk up with flapping glockenspiel
chimes while the sunny pop hues of "Seeing You" cast
a neo-folk glide.
Mighty Fairly has composed an album with almost every possible
shade of pop music availed to them, except for the hard rock part
of the pop spectrum. The music is easy on the ears like a new
adult contemporary format that fits in with pop artists like All
Smiles, Aqueduct, Vive Voce and Mates Of
State. It is like a new generation who look at music the way
REM did, as a blank canvas that you can put anything you want
on as long as it adds texture to the context of the story being
portrayed, which is what Mighty Fairly have achieved with their
debut album Perfectly Good Airplanes.
-Susan Frances
Track Listing:
1. Last Stand Started
2. Lackluster
3. Wake Up
4. It's A Shame
5. Like A Ghost
6. Dosage
7. Do You
8. Give Up
9. Movin' On
10. Seeing You
11. Superheroes
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