Review | Fatherson – Normal Fears

Label: Easy Life Records

It’s been three years since Fatherson’s last album ‘Sum Of All Your Parts’ and now they’re back with album number four, ‘Normal Fears’. Though some of the songs started life in the weeks leading up to the pandemic, Fatherson took the impending lockdown as an opportunity to try something new and instead of their usual songwriting, chose to write new songs over zoom, roped in friends to help write and, when they were able to get back together and record properly, chose to record parts separately for the first time rather than record as a band as previous. Their work only seems to have benefited from this new and bold approach.

Opener ‘End Of The World’ is an upbeat song about the end of a relationship which puts a fresh spin on the topic. With a chorus of “I know you don’t love me like you did before but that’s not the end of the world”, it’s at both times a somber and cheerful note to start the album on. A little more subdued than previous Fatherson records, it’s clear that they’re embracing the electronic side of things and it’s working for them beautifully. ‘Everything’, ‘Do It For Yourself’ and ‘Honest To God’ are almost holding themselves back to benefit the songs and give them a fresh feel.

‘Normal Fears’ is an album that sees Fatherson transcend their current standing and present themselves as arena-worthy. To list the songs that are noteworthy would be to write out the track list. Not just the most complete album that Fatherson have written but already a contender for album of the year.