Family Friends are the brother-sister combo of Rebecca and Tom Fitzsimons, based between the rather distant cities of London and Melbourne. Their latest EP, Look the Other Way, was released at the end of February, and it sees Family Friends straddle the line between upbeat indie pop and mellower, slacker vibes. Opener ‘Look the Other Way’ begins with thumping percussion and dark and shadowy synths, before morphing into a great mid-tempo indie pop song, something along the lines of Millennial jangle pop.
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‘I’m Like You’ fuses this twenty first century indie pop with a dash of 90s grunge, Rebecca’s vocals the steady focal point amidst a swirl of fuzzy guitar-shaped nostalgia and cymbal-heavy percussion. Or, as we wrote in a preview a few weeks back, the song “play[s] like a swaggered stroll along the sea’s edge, sunglasses on and chest puffed out,” though there’s a slightly weird edge which “gives the air of confidence another dimension, painting that unique pleasure and comfort of being seen in public with people you relate with completely.”
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‘New’ is a warm and mellow guitar pop song with a lil’ nod to Britpop, the kind of thing that could make a move on the charts if radio DJs were concerned with music and not celebrity, before closing track ‘What You Want’ begins with reserved guitar, wobbled slightly with a double-visioned psych effect, growing into a self-confident love song, again with Britpop elements that provide a rousing end to the EP.
Look the Other Way is out now via Beatnik Creative, and you can get it from the Family Friends Bandcamp page.