Album: KOLA
Year: 2022
…
Originally, the thought for the album that eventually became KOLA was that Sparklejet would head back to Chicago and record again with Steve Albini, but when Victor Sotelo was discussing that with Scott Oliver of the Miss Alans, he was taken by Scott’s thought that, since their last two albums were basically live in the studio, maybe this time, they could record it locally and make it a bit more produced.
And Victor was like, “sure, dude, if you’ll produce it” and Scott was all “sure, I can do that” and the result was an album that basically traded some — but not all! — of the intensity that had permeated the previous three Sparklejet albums for a bunch of catchy tunes.
To me, the perfect intersection of intensity and catchy is “Fancy,” which steals its title — but nothing else, really — from the klassic Kinks song. But Victor had been lifting other people’s titles for his own purposes ever since This Year’s Model two decades prior, and besides, in this case, it made sense, as the song was all about getting dressed up to go to the symphony. No, really.
“Fancy” opens with a massive Chris Estep bass rumbling in lockstep — they went back and overdubbed it to make sure the groove was there — with a kick-heavy Wade Krause drum beat, Victor’s guitar only occasionally stabbing here and there during the opening verse.
She walked by, wearing red stilettos
She walked by, speaking Esperanto
She walked by, wearing red stilettos
She walked by, speaking in falsetto
At this point, you would probably expect that she’d say something to him, or maybe just ignore him because she was just too fancy for poor old Victor. Instead, with a joyous roar of both his guitar and his voice, it’s time for the chorus.
Dainty, ain’t we fancy
Dainty, ain’t we fancy
Dainty, ain’t we fancy
Dainty, ain’t we fancy
Fancy
What I like about this chorus is that it seems to have it both ways: one one level, it’s kinda making fun of the whole concept of scruffy long-haired indie rockers getting dressed up to see classical music; but there’s also a bit of admiration in there, as well. Damn! We look goooooood!!! Fuck yeah.
But probably, mostly taking the piss, as evidenced by the second verse, where Victor sang “she walked by, speaking in stilettos,” an improv that everybody liked so much they left it in, and after that it’s all roaring guitars, pounding guitars and big-ass bass while Victor brags about how fancy they all are.
Catchy songs like “Fancy” are part of the reason why they ended up calling the album KOLA, as Victor figured that when people asked him why they called it that, he could answer “because it’s got pop.”
As it turns out, KOLA is my favorite album by Sparklejet since Bar Guest, and I honestly can’t wait to see what they do next!
“Fancy”
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What a tune. Thank you for posting.