Chester French – Love the Future
Just though I’d post this real quick. The family has been going through a tough couple of days, I’ll elaborate sometime soon on my own blog.
This album has been a long time coming since I first read about Chester French in an issue of Rolling Stone I bought in March 2008. The article was about the rise of all these current indie bands from Ivy league schools including; Vampire Weekend, MGMT, some crappy one and the pop/rock duo in question who attended where else but Harvard University. I’d liked at least two of the other groups, so I checked out C.F’s myspace. and instantly found a liking towards their 60s pop inspired tunes. The only problem was the release date of album was continually being pushed back. So it’s been tough waiting to see if this album would live up to my expectations and surprisingly it does, completely.
Signed to Pharrell’s Star Trak label, I was a little hesitant about the way this band could be promoted or influenced. They’d already guested on songs by the likes of rapper Common and Asher Roth so I wasn’t sure if this album as a whole would end up being my kind of thing. Though the day came and I was glad to see, it was just the kind of Preppy Pop/Rock that I was hoping to hear.
Obviously inspired by vintage Pop/Rock artists, this duo made up of vocalist D.A. Wallach and Guitarist/Dummer/Everything else Max Drummey conjure up some excellent melodies and fully satisfying arrangements. Self produced, there’s a grand fix of synths, strings, inventive percussion and more to fill the need of any Pop/Rock junkie possibly disappointed ever since Rooney totally sold out (Rooney would of course go on to tour in support of both Fergie and the Jonas Brothers.)
“The Jimmy Choos” had a good run as my Myspace profile song last summer and is still a definite highlight for me. I could do without some of this album’s occasional interludes (There’s a string and a country flavored interlude) but aside from that I love most of the poppy gems on “Love the Future”. Most of the reviews have just been mildly positive, but I think this album is bomb.com and it was definitely worth the wait.
Favorite Tracks: “C’mon (On My Own)”, “The Jimmy Choos”, “She Loves Everybody”