Review Summary: Aim And Ignite can easily be summed up as as dinner out with good friends. The anxiety and hopes that you are well dressed for the occasion, the lively conversation while you eat a well cooked meal and finally ending in gaping story telling...
Since when has stupid happiness become so distraught, so unthinkable to the extent we shun anything that has a hint of pure, honest joy. I feel our issue with cheerful music lies in our lack to be cheerful back.
fun.'s debut album, Aim And Ignite is here to excite you. It wants you to bask in its happiness. Clearly the work of Nate Ruess, Andrew Dost and Jack Anatoff has been crafted through tender care and attention to detail all while remaining both personal, elegant and dashed with a dressing of 'you' into it.
Nate Ruess, who parted ways with his former band, The Format is back. Clearly he sat down to remove the shackles of his former band but realised how supportive they have been in the past, and thus birthed this 10 track epic.
"As I walk through the streets of my new city" -'Be Calm' The opening track orders you to, well, be calm while remaining in a basin of anxiety and nerves. Nate starts of the album in a brand new world/ or a city if I were to quote. Coated with productive violins and an eventual drum beat behind an overall, masterfull horn assembly, it sets a certain mood for Aim And Ignite, one which is soon depleated...and exchanged.
Roughly 1 minute into Benson Hedges and I soon found myself under a sudden realisation. One drenched in a bright spotlight sitting just beneath powerfull gospal vocals led by Nate under quiant/ very indie guitar accompanied by Andrew's piano. Aim And Ignite is like a shared epiphany. Lead singer, Nate Ruess shares his experiences in the most ironic way possible.
Being: His change in life, his difficult struggle for self approval expressed in the stupid happniess of fun.'s music.
"I'm not a profit but I'm here to profit, thats all" belowing out and wrapping itself around your ears, 'At Least I'm Not As Sad As I Used To Be' is a theatrical adventure that swirls (like most tracks on the album) in and out of numerous tempos.
Part of Aim And Ignite's brilliance comes from the diversity delivered through each track. It is easy to hear that each track is different in its own way. Almost a different genre infact.
'All The Pretty Girls' is like sweet, sweet candy while 'Barlights' is an up-beat jazz meal. Regardless, all of it is delivered in easily digestible slices of joy and pure, imaginitive music.
By the time you hit the sun-set of Take Your Time "I'm through with causing a scene!" screams Nate, forgetting the scene constructed in The Format's "First Single", you are swept gently into closure underneath breathing piano and a howling electrical guitar, brought to rest.
Aim And Ignite can easily be summed up as as dinner out with good friends. The anxiety and hopes that you are well dressed for the occasion, the lively conversation while you eat a well cooked meal and finally ending in gaping story telling, longing discussions of the past under an intimate candle light and a romantic band with their drifting violins, guitars, pianos. It is something of a dream; this elegant atmosphere fun. creates so effortlessly. It is a shame most won't get to experience it.
