Float Away with the Friday Night Gods

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About Float Away With The Friday Night Gods

Amazon.com Float Away with the Friday Night Gods should be titled Bait and Switch. Marah's third album challenges fans with such a drastically different sound that it nearly qualifies as audience abuse. While the group previously worked a brand of rock & roll all its own--faintly rootsy, vaguely Springsteen-ish, instantly distinctive--Friday Night Gods finds the band teamed with Oasis producer Owen Morris. The result, unsurprisingly, is a polished, Anglo guitar-pop record that sounds like Oasis--a silly goal that is, nonetheless, achieved to perfection on "Float Away," the string-and-synth first single. What's most frustrating, though, isn't the new sound but the band's abandonment of its own lyrical strengths. Their last album, the indelible Kids in Philly, created a vivid sense of place even as it embraced a universal sense of empathy and community--an approach that, Lord knows, we sure could use now. By contrast, Friday Night Gods favors ultracool and clichéd club-kid poses and derivative soundscapes. Everything here is distracting enough, mind you, but with the notable exception of the earnest, atmospheric ballad "Crying on an Airplane," it all feels like a retreat from significance. --David Cantwell Product Description Produced by Owen Morris (Oasis, The Verve), Float Away With The Friday Night Gods was recorded late last year in Wales and features 10 new songs. The first single, "Float Away," features cameo vocals and guitar from Bruce Springsteen.