The Fair Attempts - Tides Are Turning

The Fair Attempts’ discography has largely consisted of dance riddled industrial rock bordering the line of synthpop; a junction of those genres with dives into darkwave, electro-industrial, and other such flavors. Seldom do they put out a brooding single that really leans into gothic territory, but ‘Tides Are Turning’ proves that they absolutely can do just that – but, as the classic phrase goes, just because you can doesn’t mean that you should. 

What the first minute of the song provides is a minute or so of feint ambiance and somber piano keys. That being said, what is played isn’t that impressive. If it’s meant to strike a mood, it does, but it needs to be chopped down by a half-minute. Get into the meat of the song and provide sustenance rather than hiding behind what I consider to be basic piano skills. And I am a man that loves me some classical keys in music. When we do get into the meat of the song, we get a slow-paced darkwave ballad with mostly clean vocals from Friendly Timo. However, I don’t think his voice is meant for darkly romantic songs that bring to mind vampiric showcases from Blutengel. While his voice is fantastic for that dark figure with a raspy voice as seen in ‘Dark Star’, I don’t find it appealing on this track. 

While I’m not appreciative of what’s on ‘Tides Are Turning’, I can still say that production is great – as is with most of the work Friendly Timo is involved in. Sound is crisp and clear and every note, beat, and sound is pronounced. Well done on that front. Nonetheless, this isn’t really a track that I can recommend to anyone going to discover The Fair Attempts. In fact, I would most likely recommend anyone to skip it and find pleasure in their recent singles ‘Dark Star’ and  ‘My Frozen Heart’, or even jumping over to Denial Waits, another project Timo is involved in. Five-and-a-half out of ten.