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Adam, Isolation Records, 2021

In the five years since they started recording their own music, Sao Paulo's Firefriend have been impressively prolific with Dead Icons their sixth collection to be released in that time. Universally well received, the band have built up a well deserved reputation for producing music that is increasingly exploratory and seductive. There is certainly a lot of love for them in the UK and this release is going to do nothing but bolster that enthusiasm as these ten songs over forty-five minutes are some of their darkest, strongest and most memorable to date. The great thing about a Firefriend album is that their music flows beautifully; it glides past you so smoothly you don't even realise it is simultaneously hitting all sorts of triggers in your brain that will draw out an emotional response. That's a fantastic weapon to have in your armoury as you can press your point without seeming to try, and by the end of the record you are preaching to the already-converted. And when you are part of the underground resistance battling against the darkness that inflicts society, Firefriend are a very potent ally to have. Never has subversion sounded so sweet.

The songs on Dead Icons are built around the gently repeating rhythms of drummer Caca Amaral on which are draped delicate patterns of guitars that chatter and chide, often injected with a fuzziness that softens without losing too much harmonic edge. Vocals from guitarist Yury Hermuche are earnest and queryring, while those of bassist Julia Grassetti are softer, sometimes barely more than whispers, accompanied by waves of vibrating sound that wash over everything to create some authentic shoegaze soundscapes. There are moments here that simply leave you breathless. At the close of side one, the immaculate 'Tomorrow' harks back to the beautiful sounds of early 4AD and shows a fine use of stereo, gorgeous guitars leaking out on all sides. It really is a stunner and it's the highlight here, though there are plenty of other fine moments. 'Hexagonal Mess' is redolent of The Fauns, 'One Thousand Miles High' chimes over a searching vocal, while the title track is gracefully insistent. There's a deceiving Pixies bass intro to 'Spin' which fails to explode, but drifts into a gentle, polychromatic beauty of a song. When Firefriend are at their darkest, they become a model of constrained power. 'Three Dimensional Sound Glitch' is a noisy, burrowing psych worm, while 'Ongoing Crash' drips rage from a hollow core. There's not a song here that doesn't fit and not a moment when you are not carried along with the flow. Dead Icons is quite simply a bloody remarkable record.

First released digitally in November 2020, Cardinal Fuzz and Little Cloud have now sensibly released this album on vinyl, though only 500 copies have been pressed so you will need to get in quickly. If the world was a better place they would have pressed a few million and given them to every schoolkid in the world to teach them how things should be. As it is, there are 125 in yellow and purple splatter vinyl, 175 in half-and-half red and black, and 200 in black. Good luck in finding one.





annon, SIC Magazine, 2021
The latest in a hot run of Firefriend LPs, Dead Icons is the Brazilians’ sixth LP since 2016 and, if anything, the cool-as-you-like three-piece may just be getting better. ...


Jeff Penczak / It’s Psychedelic Baby Magazine, 2021
The prolific Brazilian trio Firefriend return with their sixth album since forming in 2016 and ‘Dead Icons’ continues their psychedelic assault on the senses like a midnight raid on a pantry full of fuzz boxes, swarming electronics and room-swirling vibrations. ...


J.Wasko, The Ominous Drone, 2021
Firefriend have been putting out killer tunes since 2006 but it wasn’t really until 2019 when they hit the st...


Maxwell Seeman, THE SLEEPING SHAMAN, 2021
Outstanding releases that make a lasting impression happen only every once in a while. When they do occur, we ...


THE PSYCH ROCK, San Francisco , 2020
Firefriend - Fantasma is a dark psychedelic rock album with shoegaze, post-rock tenancies. This latest album ha...


Ian Smith, UK, 2020
Everything has gelled. Sao Paulo’s primary purveyors of psych perfection have dropped a new album upon us wit...


SIC magazine, Brussels/UK/USA, 2019
More than deserving of its place deep in rock’n’roll’s hall of fame is the mid-distant, part-spoken vocal...


Emiliano D'Aniello, Italy, 2019
Il miglior gruppo rock psichedelico in circolazione? Non lo so. Voglio dire, sono sicuro che ciascuno potrebbe ...


SIC magazine, Brussels/UK/USA, 2018
Pity São Paulo band Firefriend, who’ve been at it for over a decade and whose waves of superlative psych-gaz...


Primal Music Blog, Ireland, 2018
The ever prolific São Paulo-based trio of ‘Firefriend’ continue to plough a deep sonic furrow in todays mo...


Kev Drummond, UK, 2018
Manchester.London.New York.Berlin. All cities that we associate with having rich and varied musical histories a...


Dan Joy/WHEN THE SUN HITS, USA, 2018
Setting aside the buzzy haphazardness and semantic dilution characterizing today's use of “psychedelic” as ...


Le Crowley, UK, 2018
São Paolo’s Firefriend are back with a new LP, Sulfur, set for release on Portland based label Little Cloud ...


Emiliano D'Aniello, Italy, 2018
Colpaccio della Little Cloud Records di Portland, Oregon che si aggiudica (diciamo così) la pubblicazione di q...


Reverb is for lovers, Germany, 2018
Grenzen waren Firefriend schon immer egal. So auch auf dem neuen Album, das Noise, Psych und Space Rock gleiche...


Emiliano D'Aniello, Italy, 2018
Questo trio psych di San Paolo, Brasile capitanato dalla vocalist e bassista Julia Grassetti (completano la for...


Jack Beltane, US, 2017
There was a thread in American music in the late 1960s that someone untangled across the U.S., then stretched o...


Simon SixSmith, Netherlandsx, 2013
Firefriend suddenly got a lot less friend and a lot more fire. This is a sweeping, expansive, peyote trip down ...


Linkiesta, Italia, 2015
... è piuttosto un meraviglioso caleidoscopio di influenze. I Firefriend non si fanno problemi a mescolare roc...


Al Schenkel, Brasil, 2014
O Firefriend investe pesado na dissonância, ruídos e experimentações, trazendo em seu mais novo rebento uma...







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2023   DECREATION FACTS
2022   HOME OR EXILE
2022   CRYPTOMNESIA
2021   DEAD ICONS
2019   AVALANCHE
2019   HOTEL BAR
2018   YELLOW SPIDER
2018   SULFUR
2017   THE BLACK HOLE
2016   NEGATIVE SUN
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