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Fitzsimon and Brogan have been pretty busy in the last decade, putting out no less than four full-length studio albums to the amusement of critics and fans alike. In 2020, they aren’t abandoning the aesthetics that got them this far so much as they’re giving their sound the credible artistic upgrade it deserves, and with the release of the new album This Wicked Pantomime they advance a narrative that sees their brand looking as emotional as it does musically savvy. Compositionally complicated but easy to get into regardless of your interest in modern indie rock, This Wicked Pantomime is every bit the fun alternative LP I’d hoped it would be.
URL: https://fitzsimonandbrogan.com/?fbclid=IwAR1q7K-jrS3yg8WN9D1lSKUuKg9iQIhIOvY0RtFPkgeG_E35v-xDEksgtZM
While I can appreciate the merit behind every song in this tracklist, there was something about the fragility of the lyricism in “Lost Love of the Pixie Girl” that really stood out to me in my initial sit-down with the album. Though Fitzsimon and Brogan have a pretty amazing connectivity in their performances together to begin with, their harmonies in this piece are especially affectionate and glowing with optimism. They’ve been in this partnership for years, but here, they sound fresh and filled with a youthful rebelliousness I want to hear more of soon.
“Dancing Partner,” “The Sheltering Sky” and “Pretty Blue Gun” each swing heavier than a lot of the mainstream rock I’ve been spinning recently does, and I think it would be fair to say that physicality is a role player throughout the whole of This Wicked Pantomime. They’re not throwing their weight around needlessly; in every one of the aforementioned instances, FaB are going out of their way to use sonic depth as a way of extending their emotional presence from the lyrics to the music. It’s highbrow, but offered so accessibly that even the most novice of critics wouldn’t be able to resist.
I imagine that “A Toy for Juliette,” “Desolate Angel,” “Persuasion,” “The Tears of Scarlet Murder” and “Elsie’s Last Stand” will all make for some killer content in a live capacity, and in This Wicked Pantomime they almost feel more like samples of a 2020 concert that never was. Fitzsimon and Brogan are so aggressive in all the right ways here, and though some might call their measure of force a bit indulgent, it’s exactly the sort of in-studio thrashing that produces disciplined, thoughtful pop efforts like the soon-to-be-classic “A Bullet for Cinderella” and “Distorted Mirror.”
APPLE MUSIC: https://itunes.apple.com/us/artist/fitzsimon-and-brogan/433472417?ign-gact=3&ls=1
Admittedly one of my favorite records to come out this November, I don’t think you have to be a hardcore indie rocker to dig what Fitzsimon and Brogan do in This Wicked Pantomime. For those who were hungry for something a little different but still melodically tethered to a familiar, albeit unconventional, tradition in pop music, This Wicked Pantomime just might be a masterpiece. It’s not an album you’ll be able to walk away from without feeling something about its material, and in the context of 2020’s unpredictable – but frequently mind-numbing – peaks and pits, I believe this makes FaB’s latest one of the best new records in its genre at the moment.
Bethany Page
