Artist Profile: Favourite Sons
I became very familiar with Favourite Sons, the latest band signed to VICE’s rapidly-expanding roster of artists, during my time in NYC, seeing them three times and meeting them on a number of occasions. While I can’t say I was ever blown away or overwhelmingly impressed by their live show - which is solid, but nothing special - I love their recorded material and their upcoming full length debut, Down Beside Your Beauty, will be one of the best debuts of the year when it drops this fall. This is actually the third band for lead singer Ken Griffin, who rose to European fame in the mid-nineties with Rollerskate Skinny, whose 1996 album Horsedrawn Wishes garnered mass critical acclaim, was named the 14th greatest Irish album of all time, and earned the group slots on multiple tours with U2. The band’s guitarist was Jimi Shields, the brother of Kevin Shields, and due to the fact that Rollerskate Skinny’s rise to prominence coincided with My Bloody Valentine’s indie-world domination, the consistent references and comparisons ultimately proved to be a factor in the demise of the band, as Shields eventually quit and the group disbanded shortly thereafter.
After releasing one album under the name Kid Silver in 1999, Griffin moved to New York City, got a bartending job and eventually met four of the members of Aspera, a Philadelphia guitar-rock oufit who had recently broken up at the time. Huge fans of Griffin’s work with Rollerskate Skinny, they got together and thus, Favourite Sons were born.
Favourite Sons, who get bonus points for the European spelling, have a pretty straightforward indie guitar rock sound, with solid, angular riffs to support Griffin’s powerfully emotive voice. However, it’s on the choruses that the Sons really make their money, as is evident on the two tracks that I’ve posted below, “No One Ever Dies Young” and lead single “Down Beside Your Beauty”. “No One” starts out with an undeniably catchy driving riff, but it’s the chorus that is the highlight of the album for me. “All the girls and the boys tell me that it’s alright, hey hey hey, no one ever dies young”. I mean, those are just awesome lyrics, and when the instrumentation drops out at the end before punching back in on each “hey” you know the song’s money. “Down Beside Your Beauty” scores with a similar effect, with the guitars punching in with ten angular riffs and a pounding bass drum on each syllable of the chorus. Both songs were released on the group’s debut Treason EP, which saw a UK-only release earlier this year on Loog records, but will be reproduced and remastered (along with the EP’s other two songs) and featured on the Down Beside Your Beauty LP, out on VICE on September 12.
MP3s:
“No One Ever Dies Young” - Favourite Sons ((highly recommended))
“Down Beside Your Beauty” - Favourite Sons
The two mp3s posted above are taken from the group’s debut EP, but the band has made previously unheard track “Hang On, Girl” available for streaming on their MySpace page, and having heard the full album, I can say that “Hang On, Girl” is more or less the best of the new batch of non-EP tracks. Check it here.