Singles

Mr Frogg - Giving In

Russ Essom 01/01/2006

Rating: 3/5

Mr Fogg's 3-track demo is 9 minutes and 38 seconds of imagination, of invention, of the sort of calmness that could kill the elderly. The first track, “Giving In”, sets the scene impeccably; you instantly know where you are with Mr. Fogg.

It's slow, it's simplistic and it drags on for what seems like a long time, but it's not boring. “Giving In” is an honest amphetamine of a song and I found it hard not love the vocal harmonies and overlaps which form the foreground to a basic combo of drums, bass and keyboards. Lovely.

Next up is, “Cogs”, a tune which, frankly, is inseparable in style and sound from the first on the CD, but is equally effective. You would expect that there would be nothing else to say, but there is - I just don't know what it is. There is another level to, “Cogs”, another dynamic, I can't hear anything different, but the feel of the song is different, and strangely more amiable.

The final track, “Bloodrush”, uses repeated drum sounds and bass guitar licks to the same end as the previous two tracks but, again, this song is inexplicably different to the former two. At first listen it sounds like the sound of Keane and Coldplay's lovechild singing.

Alas, the easiest way to imagine what Mr Fogg does to you is that it's a little bit like morphine; it takes the pain away, it calms you down, it's better when you mix it with alcohol, but, I fear, too much may just melt your brain.