Fidel -​ Flinch

Fidel

​Flinch
self-released; 2017

3.9 out of 5

By Jamie Robash
​

Guitarist and vocalist Dave Kichen, bassist and backing vocalist Marc Roderick and drummer Jim Theodore are the Boston Massachusetts trio known as Fidel. They’re the evil genius dictators behind the raucous three song indie power-pop and rock EP Flinch.  The three met at a Christmas party and had all been in bands around the Boston area that had dissolved.

The three of them began jamming out for fun and that fun eventually turned into recording as a band. Their first EP April sired the track "Ain't Got All Night" which spent five weeks in the top three local songs of the week on WZXL 100.7FM during May and June of 2017.

The title Flinch works in many ways for this little EP that could, or can. I mean it clocks in at just a bit over eight minutes in length but it packs quite a powerful punch. The opening track “Back in Front” bursts out of the gate in classic DIY punk fashion with a clean and wiry jangle with song speak lyrics that lead up to a catchy and balls out jingle jangle chorus that captures that old Jawbreaker or Face to Face pop-punk aesthetic perfectly.

​Next comes the perfectly perfunctory punk tune “Long Arm of the Law” a minute and a half length masters class on how to write a punk rock song. It’s a recipe as simple as baking a cake out of a box but that cake always turns out to be pretty fucking delicious so shut the fuck up and eat it.

They close out Flinch with the straightforward pop punk classic “17,” a barrage of fast paced guitar bass and drums and some throat-vein popping vocal angst documenting that awful age when everything seems to be going to shit, yet you’re on the verge of adulthood.

Fidel make high energy funk rock music. It’s a pretty simple recipe that so many bands seem to fuck up. Music like this doesn’t come my way very often but when it does I greedily look forward to hearing more.  

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