Field Music, Tones of Town, Memphis Industries
With their third release, UK-based art-rock trio Field Music have created an album that is complex and accessible enough to merit multiple listens. Indeed, Tones of Town’s tracks draw strength from the band’s ability to weave rhythmic layers of sweet vocals, staccato piano punctuations and sharp, post-punk guitar riffs almost effortlessly.
This formula seems bound to fail, but the band succeeds because it executes this layering within the simple framework of the pop song. The pop structure and typical guitar-bass-piano-drums instrumentation limits most bands, relegating them to mediocrity. Field Music, however, subverts this trend with unpredictable changes in rhythm.
The odd time signatures aren’t the only distinctive feature in Tones of Town. Each song is executed with mathematical precision, from the sharp drum beats to the staccato vocals. This, combined with the band’s ability to inject complexity into pop tunes, invites strong comparisons to the New Pornographers. In fact, one could call Field Music a version of the New Pornographers with a penchant for mellow, vocally oriented art rock rather than the Pornographers’ guitar-driven power pop.
Despite comparisons, Field Music has created their own niche by adding an art-rock bend to the tradition of indie pop. With Tones of Town, Field Music injected a much-needed dose of intelligent music into the all-too-often monotonous and imitative world of pop music.
