Seattle indie/alt rock band The Figurants have been featured in the past on IRC thanks to the band’s decidedly melodic, lo-fi garage rock sound. Such is the case with the lead-off track, “Magic Magazines,” on the band’s new album, Indoor Words.
Fuzzy, jangling guitars, muffled vocals, and a big, swinging hook make the track an appropriate opener for an album full of slacker-style, chunky chords, and unperfected production value.
This is the vein of a truly original, home-grown DIY Seattle musician and producer that still have their feet firmly planted in the bygone days of the Emerald City’s alt.rock/grunge heyday.
For clarification purposes, the ‘band’ is actually a studio recording project of singer/songwriter and multi-instrumentalist Matt McClure working online with Pennsylvania producer Erik Sahd. McClure was a member of the band Red Kitchen and Sahd of Chauchat. The two originally met in high school in Lancaster, Pennsylvania.
After a 20-plus year hiatus and facilitated by the long-distance recording methods of indie rock band Sparklehorse, McClure and Sahd began to exchange recordings online and have since released three albums.
The duo’s sound, as certainly affirmed on the next track, the buzzing, “Blasha,” is comforting and kicked-back with plenty of heavy, buzzy stoner-rock allures and pop-leaning melodies.
Things mellow out a bit on the next little gem, “Buster.” Sporting a fresh and airy acoustic guitar riff, and a sweet backbeat, McClure’s vocals are so naturally fitting.
His voice has an authentic 90’s-rocker-Pacific-Northwest character to it: a little snarly, detached but at the same time engaged; indifferent yet concerned, and not to be taken too seriously. The latter becomes more apparent the more one listens to The Figurants. In fact, many of the observations within this review cannot possibly be accurately and fully articulated without listening to the album.
Another little wonderfully packaged slacker-rock charmer, “Horrible Horses,” blazes through nicely and burns at just the right temperature and illumination that it seeps into the psyche and demands the listener’s attention. In fact, that is the case for many of The Figurants’ tracks – they make you pay attention and want to hear more. That’s not a compliment that is thrown around lightly.
On “Via Vitamins,” a sugary melodic alt.rock/pop vibe takes over, complete with silly – perhaps irreverent – lyrics and choruses gliding atop fuzzy electric guitars with frequent chord changes and muzzled layers. Yet again, McClure and Sahd take what is arguably demo-y material, and make it work on its own merits.
Some may say they would have been a great band in the 90s and early 2000s thanks to their talent in creating semi-addictive, big hook and melodies lo-fi alt.rock/pop/grunge mixed tracks that make you want to go back and listen to them again.
On the track “Hong Kong,” the band adds in a Byrds-like guitar hook, a swaggering percussion and the match-up of harmonious electric guitars that just have that classic rock vibe that is so wonderfully blended with a backdrop of a 90s grunge rock/alt. rock elements that should be exciting for all fans of sounds of yesterday, but with a today’s freshness. We don’t get to hear much of this music nowadays that is actually really good and will be spun again and again.
In fact, there are so many standout tracks on the album that it makes it hard to pick the true favorites because we may have a new favorite track in a few weeks from now. When something works, it just works. If someone demanded to describe the album in three words, I would have to say: “Listen to it.”
“Serious Business” is interesting since its title purports something different than what is delivered, and which is part of the playfulness that you hear in the band’s tracks as well – they’re not really taking themselves, their music or you the listener very seriously at all – but not in a bad way.
Really it’s altogether endearing. Not your mother’s kind of endearment, unless she is a slack rocker from Tacoma who grew up when the Seattle sound dominated the world for a few years there. Some don’t want to give up that specific sound, and The Figurants are one of the few long-running bands we’ve heard over the years that do just that and do it well.
The album wraps with two short tracks, the needling of the artsy rocker “The Long Ones” and the minute-and-a-half closer, “Tredit.”
What The Figurants is offering on Indoor Words is a set of 10 unrefined, alt. rock-pop tracks with a grunge-like swagger wrapped in lo-fi guitars and melodic hooks.
Austin Townhall recently wrote about The Figurants’ sound: “I kept thinking hard upon how to describe this new tune from The Figurants. How could I explain to you my adoration for this track without using the every day pigeonholing techniques? … it’s just on the edge of arty, but teetering along the line of neediness. It definitely makes sense that the band call Seattle home, as there’s a certain lineage to the Northwest I hear here. Is nerdcore a thing?”
In 2019, we were floored by The Figurants’ track “Uncle Morty” from another solid album, Vicarious Victims. When we first heard “Your Uncle Morty”, we couldn’t help but hear hints of Sonic Youth mixed with Dinosaur Jr. It’s rare to come across such an interesting, if unintentional, combination. And yet the duo has it’s own unique alt rock sound. We dig when artists dare to be different.