Music Feed #23: "Supermodel" by Foster the People

Since the beginning of the year, Foster the People had been continuously dropping teasers of their upcoming album. Well, now the wait is finally over as their sophomore album, Supermodel is officially available. Now if you've ever followed a band since their debut, then you would've witnessed the Sophomore plague that's hit many bands in the past. With the amount of success the trio had with Torches, this was something that I feared. After a couple of listens, my verdict is that the band would have another mainstream success, yet my feelings for this album remain tangled and I have yet to decide whether they're positive or negative.

Possibly one of the largest transitions between the debut and the current album is Mark Foster's songwriting skills. What he has to offer this time exhibits his maturation as a songwriter. Supermodel exudes a darker, enigmatic tone to complement with one of the major themes on the album; "consumerism and the ugly side of capitalism" (as worded by the frontman himself). Such themes are predominantly explored in Pseudologia Fantastica, A Beginner's Guide To Destroying The Moon and Tabloid Super Junkie. All three songs emit extremely different vibes yet they all share something in common–that is, a man's bitter resentment on the brutal reality as transmitted in his lyrics.

Ironically, the band's choice of upbeat instrumentation is the antithesis of the darker themes explored. With the heavily guitar driven tracks and the psychedelic vibes, the uplifting sounds serve as a side dish to accentuate the conveyed themes. This technique is put to its greatest use for tracks like Pseudologia Fantastica, which is a graphic depiction of a PTSD stricken war veteran returning home from war.

Genre-wise, Supermodel retains the same template as utilised in their debut Torches, where a number of genres are thrown into a whirlpool to synthesise tracks of blissful psychedelic-pop. However, midway they abandon this pattern with acoustic-guitar driven tracks like Fire Escape and Goats In Trees.

It appears that the band is heading towards a direction that caters to mainstream fans with their euphoric pop. The infectious songs certainly would cling onto many minds upon first listen but whether it'll continue in the long-run is questionable.

Listen to some of the songs below: