Album Review: Fuzz Bomb

If you like your music with prominent soaring vocals and driving rhythms that are sure to get you on the dance floor, Fuzz Bomb is the album for you. As well as playing all the instruments, Wellington based musician Andrew Masseurs, formally of New Zealand band Ammp, has also recorded and mixed the entire album.

The short and sharp opening track With Eyes Out is a sparse little offering with pleasant harmonic overtones that segue nicely into the high energy and up-tempo Lay Me Down. Tight locomotive drumming drives this song along nicely. Bringing the tempo back down a notch, Andrew’s falsetto in Light Up My Way helps to elevate the mood. There’s excellent cohesion throughout, especially in Wake Up and Fly where vocal delivery and sibilance in the chorus is particularly evocative. The more dance-oriented pop/rock offering Get Up is sure to get you on your feet jiving.

Effective vocal stabs and percussive guitar combined with lamenting lyrics in The Spider help impart a low-key vibe. Summer Time brings things down another notch. Masseurs’ solo vocal with guitar is a nice touch, breaking up what is predominantly a Rock n Roll album.

Masseur then gets down to business with Don’t You Look Away, which is an up-tempo pop rock track ready for the radio. The well-crafted Toxic Love is sure to be another crowd pleaser. My favourite song however is Here I Stand, which plays to all of Masseurs’ strengths. A pulled back rhythm section pushes the poignant vocals to the fore, while layers of tambourine and staccato guitar combined with finger clicks and subtle effects convey Masseurs heartfelt message perfectly.

One of numerous singles from the album, She’s So Nasty, is a stonking downbeat track that with a few tweaks is a potential hit. Stand Up explores a more melancholic low-key vibe, which combined with some alternative chord selection is a pleasant change to the more straightforward guitar style throughout. An ascending lyric here really showcases Masseur’s fantastic vocal abilities.

The aforementioned attributes all seem to coalesce in Hearts On Fire. This track in particular makes me want to see Fuzz Bomb and Masseurs’ other work performed live. The outro track Still On The Run is a beautiful piano and violin accompanied ballad that imparts a sense of longing fit for our times.

The clarity of the mix and excellent separation is a double-edged sword at times, with slight imperfections being more noticeable. A bit more polish to bring out the commercial edge of these songs wouldn’t go amiss, however these small blemishes don’t detract from the overall stunning musicality of what is a superb release.

There’s an old school early U2 feel to this album in places but predominantly Fuzz Bomb is an original and solid stand-alone creation. Slightly reminiscent of English rockers Placebo but with less flamboyance, along with similarities to OpShop and Weta, these 12 distinctly Kiwi tracks are unique and well written, making Fuzz Bomb a must have album for your music collection.