The Daily Spin, November 24
Foster The People | Torches
Welcome back to the Daily Spin, the series in which I review 365 albums during 2023.
Each album will be given a rating on a scale from 0 to 10. You can look at the entire set here. Additionally, you can check out a list of my favorite songs from each album right here.
Album: Torches (2011)
Artist: Foster The People
Link:
I’ve always had a hard time with this album.
The most popular track is ostensibly about school shootings, despite its poppy vibe and the weirdly dissonant headspace that leaves me in every time I hear it. Three of these tracks are far and away my favorites from the artist and emblematic, I would almost say, of my music taste as a person.
And yet, as I think about this album, it sort of fades into that classically easy-listening sort of sound - despite being upbeat, energetic pop-rock that touches on hints of electronica, the sort of sound that in 2011 was far ahead of its time - the sort of sound that feels like it runs through the blood of Phoenix or Two Door Cinema Club. Ten songs, and outside of those favorites, most of them tend to run together if I’m not sort of keeping an eye on it, and few manage any sort of profound staying power in my head.
It’s West Coast indie infused with a simmering, dangerous sort of undercurrent, a mixed drink that glows in the flashing lights of a club, beckoning you closer but warning you never to linger too far.
Rating: 8.6/10
Best Tracks: Call It What You Want; Helena Beat; Houdini
Worst Tracks: Miss You; Pumped Up Kicks