Fixers - We'll Be The Moon

Nothing really comes close to the feeling when you discover a band; excitedly going through their discography, lapping up their EPs and then waiting impatiently for their album. I imagine this is what a lot of Fixers fans have been going through over the past year or so. The astonishingly brilliant ‘Here Comes 2001 So Let’s Head For The Sun’ showed that the Oxford band could write psychedelic pop to trump pretty much every other band out there (let’s largely ignore the Imperial Goddess EP) , and left a growing fan base anticipating more.

Almost a year later, and we have ‘We’ll Be The Moon’ which fails to fulfil the bombastic model which Fixers initially seemed to promise. Instead of everything being single material as out and out pop songs, the band have created an album heading in a slightly different direction. Obviously Fixers haven’t totally abandoned their original sound. Floating Up could easily have slotted in on one of their earlier EPs but it has been twisted into Yeasayer’s brand of pop which creeps up on you rather than grabbing your attention straight away. In fact a lot of ‘We’ll Be The Moon’ is comparable to Yeasayer. The rainforest noises which littered ‘Odd Blood’ can be heard on Iron Deer Dream, another cut which reminds the listener of what Fixers are actually capable of.

World Of Beauty is a psychedelic journey reminiscent of Animal Collective while Crystals and Good Night show off all the Beach Boys comparisons the band have been receiving. Good Night in particular ends the album entirely differently to how it began, with not a synth in sight. However some of ‘We’ll Be The Moon’ is simply mediocre. Tracks like Alexandra and Dais Beauty fail to capture the imagination and end up being boring and easily passed by, which contrasts to the fact that when they’re at their best, Fixers demand attention like few other bands can.

Whether Fixers didn’t want to conform to what everyone expected of them, or if they generally felt led away from the music they used to make, I doubt we’ll ever find out. Maybe they simply didn’t have enough time to write the songs for this album. Either way it’s a shame that Fixers didn’t quite deliver on what they could have been, but I guess they did set themselves quite high standards. Luckily the highlights on this record really shine through, promising that there's always the future for Fixers.

7.1

Jessy Parker Humphreys