the Fiction Kids are a band from New Haven in 2019, but you wouldn’t know that from their music. they are unstuck, both chronologically and geographically, sounding more like a shoegaze band from London in the early 1990s than a contemporary, of say, Crag Mask or Glambat. what makes this all the more strange, however, is that the band’s members are all folks that have played in other New Haven-area bands. in fact, all three/four (depending on how you count it) members have played in the fantastic alt-rock Laundry Day. Rama Kooks plays guitar and sings, Alexa Ambrose plays drums, J Thompson plays bass, and Sam Carlson originally played bass and recorded their debut album, Souvenir.
and like the name suggests, Souvenir feels like something that was brought back from somewhere else. you could have slid me this record and told me “check this out — this band opened from Ride back in 1992. it’s their second album,” and i would have believed you. it arrives fully-formed, like a band that is already comfortable and confident with its process. take the first track, “Strangers in the Night”, for example. it’s slow, moody, and dark; it’s not exactly what you might expect from a new band’s first track. it’s not a sing-along pop hook (that will come later) — it’s the conjuration of a hard-to-define mood: melancholy, tired, but determined to move forward. to offer a cinematic comparison, Souvenir opens up where the second movie in a trilogy starts. events have already unfolded, but we are catching up with our protagonists halfway through their story.
perhaps it feels that way because this is, in fact, not the beginning of the Fiction Kids’ story. with deep local music roots, each member of the band has lived a life (i.e., been in other steady, successful bands) before Souvenir’s opening notes even begin. this is not lost on Kooks, who handles the lyrics for the Fiction Kids — you can find many lines throughout Souvenir that struggle with indecision, losing time, and transformation. the second track, “A Lonely Death”, recounts lines like “make up your mind”, and “it’s too late”, and “try to get it right.” and that’s just in the first verse! other songs like “Heaven Knows”, “Swiss Army”, and “Sparks” have similar preoccupations with time and opportunity.
the Fiction Kids’ music is that rare combination of fuzzy, washed out, and muscular. where the guitar is drenched in distortion and reverb, the rhythm section is unshakably tight, resulting in the music not just washing over you, but hitting you. as deftly as the band maneuvers in their ballads (“Strangers in the Night”, “Way Down”), their best moments are when they pummel the listener with their blown-out brand of post-punk. Souvenir was recorded by Sam Carlson of Sans Serif Recording, who once again perfectly adapts to the album’s unique aims (for reference, he recorded both Shy’s Former and Evelyn Gray’s Let the Flower Grow, both of which are very different from Souvenir and very different from one another). so while the Fiction Kids may appeal to your nostalgic instincts, what really makes Souvenir so wonderful is its knack for melody and the loud, noisy songs that deliver those hooks so well.
here are my favorite moments of Souvenir:
“A Lonely Death”: while the opening track, “Strangers in the Night”, serves as a steady mood-reset for Souvenir, this track is really where the album digs its hooks into me. an early indication of how loud and propulsive Souvenir can get, this burner gets louder as it goes on.
“Swiss Army”: i love every bit of this song, but my very favorite moment is in its opening. surrendering themselves to their noisier instincts, the first minute is a loud, blurry wave. and from that, the main riff — a simple chord progression — emerges from the chaos to take hold. and when that riff enters the song, it’s simply perfect.
“The Jordan Rules”: to close Souvenir, the Fiction Kids invert their genre’s format. many of the songs here showcase quieter verses and louder choruses. “The Jordan Rules”, on the other hand, dials back the volume on its chorus, but only barely. Ambrose’s drums constantly on the verge of erupting, this chorus is a delightful tease. it’s a great bookend to “Strangers in the Night”, which is relatively static in its tone and volume; the Fiction Kids leave Souvenir changed, different than they were when they began.
