If you haven’t heard, or come across, 4ft Fingers yet then you need to crawl back under the rock you’ve just appeared from. Practically living on the UK toilet circuit, 4ft are already veterans of the scene, despite having an average age of 25. ‘A Cause For Concern’ is the band’s third full-length album and is arguably their best. With 12 slabs of skate-punk, 4ft haven’t tweaked their sound too much to piss off old-skool fans, yet have smoothed out any inaccuracies with a more mature edge. There may not be the instant appeal of older songs like ‘Last Man Standing’, but in the process 4ft have come back with an album that is more considered, and dare I say it, more mature, than ever before.
From the opening strains of ‘Head Held High’ everything you’ve come to know and love about the Gloucester mob is here. The fast, breakneck guitar parts, tub-thumping drums and spot-on vocal harmonies are all present and correct and the production is by far the best yet. 4ft records have never been shabbily recorded, but ‘A Cause For Concern’ takes things up a notch even further. Some of the tracks may not be as blatantly fast, but the guitar parts are more thoughtful and Rob’s vocals are as spot-on as ever; never once falling back on any kind of Americanised sound. Standouts for me include ‘Back on the Wagon Again’ and ‘Side By Side’, both traditional 4ft tracks that fans will lap up. The only real curveball is the keyboard-laden ‘Irish Eyes‘, which sounds a little eerie, but you can’t blame the band for trying something different, even when it doesn’t work as expected.
Whilst the 12 songs on offer probably aren’t the most instant 4ft tracks, they certainly rank among the best. Having done the groundwork with a hard slog on the UK circuit, the band have come back and dispelled the myth that the third album is the troublesome one. Fast, furious, fun and choc-full of melodies, 4ft Fingers should have no cause for concern – this is a record that lives up to expectations.
www.4ftfingers.com
Golf Records
Paul