Fun Lovin’ Criminals

Come Find Yourself (EMI)
by Austin Nash

I often drink to my mother for not breeding any soul into me, for to be a wide angle fan of the blues would deprive me of the ability to discern the worthwhile products of its proverbial cock from the overwhelmingly messy abundance of its pseudo silk mainstream counterparts. Fun Lovin’ Criminals‘ Come Find Yourself is the result of several New York City bouncers gone bored and thus working to acquire the skills and the will to strive for self-actualization before running out of time and ideas. I dug this album for its low key slacker wrappe (I think that’s French) style and for retaining the capacity to employ wavering and dreamy tones underlain with deliciously applied analog keyboard and guitar sounds that left me with a movin’-around-the-place contemplative feeling. You will also find a few numbers (“Passive Aggressive” and “Bombin’ the L”) spitting forth crunching guitar chords and a delicately applied measure of the attitude to be expected from self-proclaimed small time New York criminals.

The end game of this album lies in its comprehensive feeling and not in the individuality of the songs which are a rare, thoughtfully arranged, and sorely needed qualitative bonus to this style of music. I would listen to Come Find Yourself in a similar context to a My Bloody Valentine or Elvis Costello album. It manages to provide a well thought out flow that would be destroyed by a shuffle play CD pack.

The stars of Come Find Yourself are “Scooby Snacks,” employing those rich, distorted analog sounds that make my nuts bob in their sling, and “Methedonia,” where I could possibly find myself slow dancing with a date under a soft pink light by my bathroom (I also have a filing cabinet, and may soon invest in a vacuum; I am no longer punk). Somewhere in here there is a beer, a gun fight, and lipstick on a dick. Viva Cambridgeport.