Yesterday I bought three new albums – one Powerwolf, one Arch Enemy and one Head and the Heart. One of these is not like the others, but variety is the spice of life here on a Creative Maelstrom. Look for them on future reviews…when I randomly roll them. For today, I offer you a little indie folk.
Disc 1830 is…Genevieve
Artist: Fust
Year of Release: 2023
What’s up with the Cover? A house in the country. It looks like the house is unfinished or needs a renovation. At the very least it needs a coat of paint, because it is seriously washed out.
Come to think of it, that gravel road looks pretty washed out too.
How I Came To Know It: I was reading a review on Paste Magazine of Fust’s 2025 album, “Big Ugly”. That sounded pretty good, and not only did I check out “Big Ugly” I decided to dig into the band’s back catalogue. Which led me here.
How It Stacks Up: I have three Fust albums (including the aforementioned “Big Ugly”). Of the three, “Genevieve” is my favourite. #1! I reserve the right to let “Big Ugly” challenge for the title down the road, as the contest is a close one.
Ratings: 5 stars
“Genevieve” is like a warm and lazy summer day, languorous and lovely and good for quiet reflection. Listening to this record chilled me out and calmed my mind.
What’s the Fust formula for casting such a spell on the over-revved engine that is my mind on most days? Well, it isn’t anything revolutionary if that’s what you’re expecting. If anything, Fust’s brand of indie folk is very much in the middle of the movement. You’ve got strummed guitars, and a quavering high voiced singer/songwriter (Aaron Dowdy), and melodies that lilt along in a way that’s predictable in a good way.
If anything it is the delivery. It isn’t easy to play songs that are this laid back, you always run the risk of rushing the beat (sounds messy) or falling into a drone (sounds boring). Fust rides in the back of the beat’s saddle like a veteran cowboy, gently steering the direction of the story with Dowdy’s well-crafted lyrics, and expert phrasing.
There are a couple of ways lesser indie folk bands typically irritate me. The first is replacing good songwriting with a lot of clangor and flourishes of instruments, hoping all that noise can mask they don’t know how to end a song. Not so, Fust. “Genevieve” has a lush production to it, but it is used to create warmth to the sound, not to hide anything.
My other annoyance in the indie folk world is fragmentary lyric writing, where the band is so focused on clever turns of phrase, they fail to tell the story. Folk music tells stories, and if you’re going to enter that world (even obliquely through the ill-defined “indie” aesthetic) you better be prepared to tell a story.
Again, no problem here. These songs are powerful and deeply moving. The music will cause you to sink into a comfortable mental space, and once there you can expect to hear tales that explore complex emotional and social circumstances.
On “Town in Decline” a couple goes about their daily routine, cooking breakfast, cleaning the gutters, all against the backdrop of the factory closing, and the knowledge that the jobs are gone. The layers in the simplicity of this song are exquisite. The ability to endure hardship with quiet grace, but also the deeper tragedy of knowing this isn’t sustainable, and the bills are going to come in soon enough. This is not referenced directly, but in the background as we look in on this loving couple and extrapolate their story across the broader decline of the community.
On “Open Water’ we get a thoughtful Dowdy comparing a great love to the vast uncertainty of open water, applying the same to the call of the artist to create, before the final stanza finds our narrator pining for a simpler life:
“The sun lights up
our city
And it writes a little ode to open water
Says you can have your distance but can't escape the ether
So what I want more than anything better
Is a little old home to call my own
Where I like the wallpaper and what the sun's done to it”
Notable that the vast depths of love and art aren’t lost here, they’re just situated alongside and within the quiet beauty of hearth and home.
And in that we find the magic of this record, and what elevates its greatness. The music on this record puts you into a safe place of quiet contemplation, then it hits you with some Big Thoughts. Most of all, it posits that these things can exist – must exist – forever intertwined with one another.
Best tracks: all tracks
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