Album Review: Farewell, My Love - 'Gold Tattoos'

You can pretty much draw a line straight down the middle of Farewell, My Love’s new record ‘Gold Tattoos’ and split everything it contains into a “good” and “bad” column. Never mind the cliché moments as that could be a whole other argument.

This record strives to be huge, full of memorable anthems to be sung by a stadium full of people, it just falls down too many times to actually make it there. The band excels in their chorus lines. They are huge and catchy. It’s just the other parts of the songs that haven’t been given enough attention. 

Opening track 'Afraid Of The Dark' is a fast paced, scattered affair, which pushes the vocals forward and reveals one major factor that overruns this album – these guys sound exactly the same as the first two My Chemical Romance records. You could easily be mistaken for thinking these are old MCR demos, it’s crazy.

Putting that aside, the album hits its strength on 'Faceless Frames', a song that makes the most of the band's chorus writing ability and big sound. This is carried through to 'Rewind The Play', which almost seems a bit goth orchestral rock and borders on the ridiculous. But, it is fun enough to stave away any further ridicule.

'Friends & Fiends' is another standout that changes up the sound a little bit with the inclusion of synthesizers and dance beats, which seems a little out of place in context to the rest of the record, but is an enjoyable track.

The album’s title track features some pretty inspirational lyrics backed by bright guitars and the subject matter touches on love and fighting for one another in an almost medieval Protest The Hero sort of way. Things then end on 'The Queen Of Hearts', another quick punk number with chaotic guitars. By this point the tones become grating, they are sharp and while the guitar solos throughout the record are actually pretty rad, the lack of diversity in sound does take its toll.

It seems like Farewell My Love are struggling to find their own unique sound and approach, especially considering the disjointed feel to many of these songs. There is clearly some talent here but they are essentially a My Chemical Romance rip-off and it’s really hard to get past that.

1. Afraid Of The Dark

2. My Perfect Thing

3. Faceless Frames

4. Mirror, Mirror

5. Rewind The Play

6. Nostalgia

7. Skip The Memories

8. Friends & Fiends

9. Paper Forts

10. Angels

11. Gold Tattoos

12. The Queen Of Hearts