ALBUM REVIEW: Fat White Family – ‘Forgiveness Is Yours’

If there were a suitable time to reflect on the numerous controversies and beefs that once embroiled Fat White Family, it certainly isn’t now. We’re about a decade removed from all of it; it’s just not worth it anymore. Though, that almost seems like a counterintuitive way to think when that was one of the main things they had going for them. Between that, a notoriously fractious live show and open drug addiction, the actual music for this band was way down on the priority list. That, too, felt like an open secret when looking at the output—shambolic, budgetless post-punk on the first album; stone-dead dirges for the entirety of the second. With Fat White Family, the whole ‘appeal’ could be compounded in watching an act navigate through their own gunk and self-loathing, and see what came out the other end. When that debut Champagne Holocaust found itself adorned with a crudely drawn image of a naked, emaciated pig-man with a knob down to his knees, what else would you expect?

Clearly that phallocentrism hasn’t totally gone away in the last decade, not if Forgiveness Is Yours’ centrepiece Today You Become Man is anything to go by. Lias Kaci Saoudi recollects the story of his brother’s circumcision, taken to the mountains of Algeria at five years old to have the process done unaesthetised, and with almost cult-like reverence behind it. Though, in Saoudi’s perspective and way of relaying it, it’s made to sound as horrifying as possible, with a delivery that’s close and frenzied and mirroring of the adjoining breathless percussion and uncomfortable chanted samples. Evidently, Fat White Family are still trotting out their calling card of musical unfriendliness without haste.

The difference is there actually appears to be something to this. See, there’s never really been a ‘good’ Fat White Family album; even 2019’s Serfs Up!, despite being their first stab at ‘normal’ music, could struggle to replicate the captivating maelstrom of a band their reputation so regularly touted them as. Not only is Forgiveness Is Yours the most tuneful and listenable that Fat White Family have ever been, then, but it’s not at the expense of the brand they’ve built themselves. They’re still weird, grotty little greebos, prioritising discomfort and abstract nihilism high above all else. The difference is, now, you can take them seriously as musicians. When songs like Bullet Of Dignity or Visions Of Pain attempt something even markedly close to a cogent melody, that’s a significant step forward.

And it’s not like Forgiveness Is Yours is too far removed from the set standard, either. It’s why this one, too, can’t necessarily be called wholly ‘good’, either—too much of that space is filled with fostering discord out of necessity, and there’s a recognisable shelf life for that. At least it can be interesting this time, though. It’s certainly hard to turn away when Saoudi is panting and breathing heavily at the front of Polygamy Is Only For The Chief, or when the implosions become condensed enough to track on Religion For One or Feed The Horse. Instability and chaos is at the heart of Forgiveness Is Yours in a surprisingly tolerable way, considering this band’s record. Sure, there’ll be some for whom the decaying of traditional song structures via overspilling backing vocals and spasmodic strings and saxes will be too much, but context is everything there. This is the most sense a Fat White Family album has made in its choices…probably ever.

Of course, all the talk of ‘tunefulness’ and ‘listenability’ is still relative. You can tell, at heart, that Fat White Family still want to alienate, and make no mistake—they do. You’d struggle to find anything resembling a conventional hook (even if Work channelling darkwave in its faster bass and programmed percussion comes tantalisingly close). Moreover, their deconstructionist element seems to actively decry too much of that. With its daintier pianos and fluttering backing vocals, You Can’t Force It feels like the grease and grime of Fat White Family slathered on a golden-age Disney song, i.e. the quickest way to remove anything aesthetically or ideologically nice.

Bear in mind, though, that’s merely an observation rather than a condemnation. It’s what Fat White Family are known for, after all, and even if they’re on the train of ‘professional band’ now, that doesn’t mean who they fundamentally are is to be astroturfed. At least now, there’s a median between that and wilful amateurishness for the sake of making a point. And when they’ve yet to settle or stabilise to a level that’d turn them heel, finally—finally!—Fat White Family are at a spot that they can make work. It’s still up in the air as to how much, but that’s indelibly the point. They’re not designed as a band to feel comfortable around, but at least now, there’s something of a reason to be around them at all.

For fans of: Gilla Band, shame, Goat Girl

‘Forgiveness Is Yours’ by Fat White Family is released on 26th April on Domino Recording Company.

Words by Luke Nuttall