White Rabbits - Fort Nightly LP AFS 004
White Rabbits' debut album "Fort Nightly" featured on 180 gram vinyl
Fort Nightly is that rare debut where potential isn't the operative word-- White Rabbits deliver the whole package straight away. The NYC six-piece writes great songs that merge rhythmic intensity with grandiose melodrama in a seamless and inventive package. Opening the album with a sinister left-handed piano riff, "Kid on My Shoulders" features steam engine drums that give the song's many hooks ample chance to sink in. It's a track that keeps getting catchier as it goes, ending with a choral coda that has a monumental sweep. Opening an album with a headrush like that will be a good strategy from now until humans finally wipe themselves out, but plenty of albums peter out after this kind of track. Fort Nightly doesn't-- thanks to the band's enormous bag of musical tricks.
The piano, especially the lower octaves, is hugely important to a lot of the group's best tracks, though you might not realize it at first. It slots well into the band's big, spacious sound, and it helps ground the multi-layered vocals and keep the frequently surf-inspired guitars at bay. The piano also frequently adds what Duke Ellington once referred to as "the Latin tinge"-- its lead on "Navy Wives" provides a tango accent to the song's subtle ska rhythm, one of many tracks that sport a major second-wave ska influence. As far as that's concerned, this band is a lot more Specials than Madness, keeping its content mostly dark and serious rather than jaunty and jovial.
As important as the piano is, though, the band's biggest weapon is the vocals. The leads are strongly melodic, with just a slight gravelly edge, and the production puts them front and center without forgetting everything else. Around the lead vocals you get everything from doubling that simply fortifies the melodies to soft "ooh-aah" backing harmonies to weirdness like the freakish falsetto choir that pops up twice on of reggae-spiked "March of Camels", accompanied by a nicely funky staccato piano riff.
The simple doubling on the fractured verses of the title track heightens the uneasy atmosphere created by the positively evil piano undertow and chunky march/funk drums. The song breaks out of the dark forest with a stately piano melody in the middle, only to be sucked back in again. Fort Nightly can be appreciated both for its overarching vibe and for minute details such as the very subtle, hair-raising organ part that perks up just long enough in the second verse of "Dinner Party" to shake the song out of its rhythmic comfort zone. It's a great debut for a band with an impressive, distinctive sound.
— Joe Tangari, June 4, 2007 (pitchfork.com)
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