Christian Fitness - I Am Scared Of Everything That Isn’t Me

Andy Falkous is spoiling us these days. After the last two Future Of The Left albums were delivered in relatively quick succession, not to mention surrounded by several EP’s of extra material, frontman Falkous (better known as Falco and also formerly of Mclusky) has decided to fill some downtime from the band and after losing his job by forming a new band, one that consists only of himself. He doesn’t like the term ‘solo project’, perhaps due to the images it can evoke of either mournful acoustic balladry or an ego too big to be contained within a group any longer, but as you’d expect, neither of these are on display here. Instead what this side project delivers is a simplified, home recorded version of what he does best. 

Falco has had a knack for great album openers throughout his career and he doesn’t disappoint here. ‘Aghast, Anew, Anon’ kicks things off in incredibly promising style, an opener well worthy of any of the previous albums in his canon. While nowhere near as loud or angry as ‘Arming Eritrea’, it goes some way towards capturing a similar exhilaration in its chorus, an opener that invites you in with the same sort of rush as the Pixies’ ‘Debaser’, and elsewhere, ‘Teeth’s’ climax of swirling guitars is a welcome diversion from the usual relentless distortion. The home recorded nature of the album gives it a pleasing mid-fi aesthetic, falling somewhere between FOTL’s brash loudness and Mclusky’s use of that Spartan Steve Albini sound. The guitars on ‘Soft Power Itches’ bring to mind the sound of The Fall’s gloriously underproduced 1979 gem of an album Dragnet, while other tracks often sound like extra demos that somehow didn’t make the cut for the Mcluskyism retrospective, none more so than the joyfully aggressive ‘Attack Of The 50 Foot Side Project’. Meanwhile, closer ‘The Earth Keeps Its Secrets’ starts off quiet and sleek before eventually descending into white noise, ‘Support Systems’ style. 

The album isn’t as entirely consistent as his best work, however, and a couple of tracks towards the back end of the album end up feeling a bit tossed off. The album’s title track almost falls into this trap by being musically unremarkable, but as is often the case it’s saved by its brilliantly hilarious and biting lyrics, for example, explaining the title as being the true meaning of the phrase “Britain is drowning in immigration” (not to mention the line “Cynicism is great/You can use it to work out who is a cunt”). Then again, with the strongest material, there is almost a sense that some of it is just too good not to be on a Future Of The Left album, and it’s sad to think we may never get to hear ‘Aghast, Anew, Anon’ or ‘Christian Fitness’ blasted out live (the latter’s shimmering guitars and deranged vocals would be a particular joy).

Largely, I Am Scared Of Everything That Isn’t Me sounds pretty much like a new Future Of The Left album recorded on a shoestring budget, albeit with different musicians, (which is essentially what it is) with most of those musicians being Falco himself. The drumming by himself and Steven Gilchrist is quite simple compared to Jack Eggleston’s explosive pummelling, but it suits the low key recording style well, and while the sheer invention of current FOTL bassist Julia Ruzicka is instantly recognisable when she puts in an appearance on ‘Soft Power Itches’, Falco’s own basslines hold up well through the rest of the record. Having self-released the last FOTL album, last year’s excellent How To Stop Your Brain In An Accident, with the help of Pledge Music, this time round it’s straight on Bandcamp, with digital sales and pre-orders helping to fund the soon-to-be-delivered physical incarnation. He’s recently stated that he’s already working on a follow up, so it makes sense that we all buy this one so that Falco doesn’t have to get a job and can record more and more. If only unemployment always sounded this good.