Singles

O Fracas - Follow Sue/Tarn at Ten

Georgie O'Toole 18/04/2006

Rating: 2/5

I really wanted to fall in love with O Fracas. Dubbed an 'urgent racket' by NME and 'art-rock dynamite' by their label, I had high hopes for their second single, following their acclaimed first release 'Zeroes & Ones / What Jim Hears'. Championed by bands such as the Mystery Jets and with an impressive underground following, 'Follow Sue/Tarn at Ten' should have heralded their breakthrough into the indie mainstream.

Unfortunately, this single fails to deliver. Bouncing back and forth between jarring guitars and repetitive vocals, O Fracas are almost there with this one, but just miss the target. B-side, 'Tarn at Ten' sounds...well, the same actually - as jolting as an early-morning-late-night espresso and as jittery as the poor sucker who drank it. This is partly a good thing, but although toe-tappingly apt, these song are just too familiar, resembling a stripped-back early bloc party and hardly distinguishable from contemporaries such as Good Shoes and The Automatic. While there's nothing exacltly wrong with this release, there's nothing particularly outstanding about it either, and the songs induce a feeling of deja vu that comes with a night at an indie disco where each song is as identical as the next. 'Is it just me or are we falling apart at the seams' yelps singer Ben in the midst of 'Follow Sue'- after a listen to this, I'd say that they were.