Fury Weekend – Million Flares and Starlights
Fury Weekend – Million Flares and Starlights
FiXT Music
Release Date: 17/09/24
Running Time: 32:17
Review by Dark Juan
Many sextillions/10 (fnarr, fnarr, sex)
It is Saturday in Crow Cottage, and it is ‘Rushbearing Weekend’ in the small corner of the People’s Republic of West Yorkshire I call home. If you are not familiar with this strange and esoteric festival peculiar to the Calder Valley, it is when the denizens of the area park a young woman on the top of a ten-foot-high cart piled with rushes and then a bunch of brawny blokes pull her and the cart around the local villages, imbibing liberally in the local hostelries that they pass on their sojourn around the villages of the valley. By the time they get to where I live, everything has normally gone to absolute shit because they are wankered, the young lady is also wankered and keeps falling off the wagon literally rather than figuratively, and the entire adult population of my town are normally all arseholed, and OUTSIDE MY HOUSE. This is why I am decamping to Liverpool for the evening. It is rare that Scouseland is going to be calmer and more relaxing than a dirty little mill town outside of Halifax, ah tell thee.
Also, and this is important for your understanding of this unusual folk festival, where there are going to be all manner of fucking Morris dancers and shit causing traffic chaos along my road and jangling their little bells and inadvertently summoning Asphodel, the young lady who will be perched upon the cart is supposed to be a virgin, for… reasons. However, this requirement has passed into history now. Mainly because there are no virgins left because Dark Juan lives here.
This, as usual has fuck all to do with what I am supposed to be writing about. This time, cast upon the Platter of Splatter ™ is an artist from Minsk in Belarus who plays under the name of Fury Weekend. Now, having previously reviewed a Belarusian band called Synaxaria and been somewhat unpleasant about the state of their political leadership, the good people of that band quietly (and very politely – Dark Juan appreciates manners) informed me that if you are anything less than reverent about their leaders, they have a somewhat warped lese majeste law that means you get five years in chokey for shit someone else has said, so in the interest of excellent foreign relations for the State of Ever-Metal.com with Belarus, Dark Juan wishes to make known his SINCERE admiration of the Belarusian government. Nor do I want to risk some bloke with a scarred face, military haircut and appalling shoes fucking jabbing a Q-Branch umbrella loaded with ricin pellets into my leg.
Sarcasm is not an option, here. Neither is a knowing nod and wink.
The person behind Fury Weekend is Ars Nikonov, and his list of friends and collaborators on this album reads like a who’s who of Synthwave, including the likes of Dark Juan favourites, Noveau Arcade, as well as PRIZM and Platforms. Yes, we are back in the realms of cathode ray TV screens, flying cars, acres of pink and green neon and retro-futuristic Electronic Music that takes the soundtracks of John Carpenter films as their starting point and just…GOES LIKE STINK FROM THERE.
Synthwave, in all its various genres (Outrun, Vaporwave, Retrowave and Darksynth and the like) takes its influence from the 1980s, action and sf films and the aesthetic of video games and it gets Dark Juan’s motor running like a throbbing, rumbling V8 in a fucking Pontiac Trans-Am. Dark Juan loves this genre of music and this album by Fury Weekend does nothing to change Dark Juan’s love of the music. “Million Flares and Starlights” is everything Synthwave should be – tempos between 80 and 118 bpm, gaudy, robotised voices and synthesised guitars, yet with a seedy and unpleasant underbelly like rust being obvious underneath the shiny yellows and blues of public mass transit vehicles, fleetingly glimpsed pale figures clad in shiny black PVC through incessant rain in a neon-soaked hellscape of crowded humanity, in a post-apocalyptic city where life is cheap and prostitutes are even cheaper, in a trash-filled alley stinking of vomit, poorly formulated drugs and rat piss just off the gleaming, rain-soaked main drag… It’s Cyberpunk in musical form and entirely what the soundscape of a William Gibson novel would be like.
However, this record doesn’t just tread the now well-worn track of pure Synthwave sounds. Ars Nikonov has an extended and eclectic CV, having worked on music by Diversant: 13, Cold in May, Martian Love, Seanine, and Tribal A.D. and running the musical gamut from Industrial to Post Rock, and these elements shine through in the diverse sounds he uses on this album. The music encompasses the sounds of Indie Rock, Dance, Electronic Industrial and Aggrotech and this lends the album hitherto unexplored musical hinterlands to go and experience. Yes, the good things about Synthwave music are here – winsome female vocals on some tracks (‘Million Stars’, ‘Constellation’), intricate Electronic mastery and a film-like score (‘Discover The Universe’, ‘Nova Void’) and music that could be the soundtrack to a retro-futuristic chase scene (‘The Vanishing Part III’) involving long black cars and spitting laser weapons on a busy highway at night with curiously evenly spaced vehicles leaving just enough room for protagonists to weave through but there is also more… Much fucking more.
In short, its fucking perfect. The production of the music is clearer than the moment of clarity you have when your addled, hungover brain drip feeds you back the memory of just who you shouldn’t have screwed last night but did anyway, and the mix is rather louder and fuller and richer than most Synthwave records. In fact, it reminds me of the all-or-nothing production values of the likes of Nouveau Arcade and Occams Laser, both of whom Dark Juan holds in considerable regard with their bludgeoning volume and take-no-prisoners attitude.
Dark Juan states clearly, now, that Fury Weekend are more than worth a punt if you are a fan of the Synthwave genre. The usual caveat applies, however, that this is not Heavy Metal music. However, because Dark Juan is a man whose musical explorations are intrepid, and because Synthwave is one of the more unusual and esoteric adjuncts of Metal that went off and did its own unique thing, I have decided it is worthy of my attention. It is very much worthy of yours because Synthwave is awesome, and Fury Weekend are also fucking awesome too. You should buy this record if you are a fan of the likes of Gunship, Nouveau Arcade and Occams Laser.
The Patented Dark Juan Blood Splat Rating System (Запатэнтаваная сістэма ацэнкі пырскаў крыві Dark Juan – Прывітанне, добрыя людзі Беларусі! прывітанне з Вялікабрытаніі! Я хацеў бы аднойчы наведаць вашу цудоўную краіну, але я збіраюся пачакаць, пакуль у вас будзе больш прыязны ўрад. Я прывык да свабоды слова і не задумваюся над тым, што мяне закрыюць на гады проста за тое, што я кажу тое, што думаю. Мае спачуванні, і я спадзяюся, што ваша сітуацыя хутка зменіцца. Вялікая любоў да вас усіх!) is wetting itself with excitement at yet another brilliant Synthwave album to add to its collection and awards Fury Weekend many sextillions/ 10 for a record that has hit every pleasure centre in Dark Juan’s brain and turned him into a gibbering, post-orgasmic mass on the floor.
TRACKLISTING:
01. Discover the Universe
02. Constellation (feat. Mari Kattman)
03. Galaxy of Love (feat. Platforms)
04. Nova Void
05. Feel the Beat (feat. PRIZM)
06. Don’t Change the Rhythm
07. Tomorrow Comes Today (feat. Nouveau Arcade)
08. Illusion of Flight (feat. Kirill Babiev)
09. The Vanishing Pt.III
10. Million Stars (feat. King Protea)
LINE-UP:
Ars Nikonov – Absolutely fucking everything, the annoyingly talented bastard!
LINKS:
Disclaimer: This review is solely the property of Dark Juan and Ever Metal. It is strictly forbidden to copy any part of this review, unless you have the strict permission of both parties. Failure to adhere to this will be treated as plagiarism and will be reported to the relevant authorities.
