Ever been angry or frustrated, and felt like the only cure for that was to dance your ass off? Look no further than Fashion Tips’ debut album I Wish You Every Success! The British quartet are punky, angry, and riotously fun. From the very beginning, it’s clear Fashion Tips are not here to mince their words, and demand that you hear them.
The album opener, “Radio Song”, is a fully synthed-out heavy riot tune, the length of a pop song but far too dark and far too dense to be just that. The drum machine is driving, anxious and yet unapologetic. The bass fizzes and growls, while the guitar goes from ominous and ghostly in the verses to filthy fat riffs in the chorus. Somewhere between talking and high-pitched yelling, initially I thought I’d find the vocals annoying, but soon realised I just found them incredibly assertive, and I now find them to be one of my favourite parts of Fashion Tips’ sound. On “Radio Song”, I particularly like the chorus – the lyrics that lead into it the first time are ‘My radio plays your favourite station/Like one endless awkward conversation/This just isn’t really working out’, and the chorus is just ‘I’m sorry’, over and over. But it’s not at all apologetic. Instead, it’s somewhere between disinterested and sassy – the gothic organ line adds to the sensation that Fashion Tips aren’t really that sorry at all.
One of the shorter tracks on IWYES, “Don’t Call Me”, is a bit of a hidden gem in my eyes. It’s straightforward, featuring an almost drum-n-bass beat, with a feral, sassy energy behind it. The way the sound of a phone ringing is integrated into the music really tickles me. The glassy synth rise into the bridge is the kind of thing that’s so simple yet so effective that it makes the hair on my arms stand up, and let’s not forget the icy guitar line in the choruses either. This song is the switchblade Fashion Tips carry in their pocket, a chihuahua amongst the big dogs of the album – small, feisty, and in your face.
However, my favourite song on the album (at least right now) is “Lunched Out”. Previously released on their 2022 EP, Fucking Hell, this version is more refined but keeps the same feral energy as the original. Disco beats, fuzz bass, gross guitar dissonance, noisy synth melodies, and a slappingly catchy chorus? What more could I want? I could dance to this song all day, every day, and never get tired. Non-stop party vibes. I would completely legitimately love a ten-hour version of this track.
“Thousand Bird Pattern” is the longest track on IWYES by quite a margin, coming in at just under six minutes. Something about this track in particular gets me – the wonderfully catchy bassline, the abundance of nail-biting synth layers, the angular rhythms, all paired with the scathing vocals; it doesn’t get much better than this. The vicious sass of the line ‘I know exactly where you get your outfits/And you really should have kept your receipts’ – damn! It’s one of my absolute favourite lyrics on an album that’s filled with scathing one-liners. This track makes me feel a bit queasy; it shudders with dissonant fury, disgusting bends and guitar spam smeared over the gritty bass and stabbing drums, all smothering the vocals in a delightful claustrophobia. The intensity and distortion ramp up to a near-unbearable tension, until the song unceremoniously crumbles in on itself. What a way to end such a strong album.
IWYES is a front-to-back adrenaline-pumping good time. The super-punky but somehow sultry “The Lovers”, the infectiously fast-paced “Steve Lamacq”, hair-raisingly anxious “Hot Problems”, and the midnight-retro-rave “Quelle Surprise” (featuring another one of my favourite lines, ‘no one is in love with you now’) are all tracks that easily deserve a paragraph to themselves, but I’m always one for keeping some of the mystery in a review.
I’m not very familiar with this style of music and therefore only have a very narrow (and very local) frame of reference. There are a few bands around where I live that all share similarities with Fashion Tips, and would be amazing on the same line-up as them. Nonetheless, what I do know is that this is a great album and I enjoy every minute of it. There’s something desperate about I Wish You Every Success, but also something incredibly strong and assertive. There’s a whole bunch of pent-up rage in here, a feeling of wanting to explode to reach some kind of release. I’m not too sure if that release ever comes, and yet, the album is so cathartic. Adrenaline is high for the entire album – there’s no chilling out, no taking a step back, just constant, in-your-face confrontation. It’s infectious. It makes you want to fuck shit up. And I’m here for it.
