Natural Selection is the debut album by Manchester band Fruit Tones. The music that Fruit Tones play is no nonsense. There are no gimmicks here. It is just raw, primal and rough around the edges garage rock with pop sensibilities. This album follows a series of releases from Fruit Tones. The trio consists of Tom Walmsley (guitar/vocals), Tom Harrison (drums) and Chris Wood on bass. Dominic Oliver played on bass on the record. In 2014 they released the Some Strange Voodoo EP on Stolen Body Records, a split cassette called Summer Slammin’ in 2016 and the Ripe & Ready EP in 2017 on Greenway Records. Recorded over three freezing cold days in December 2018 with Samuel Stacpool (Holiday Ghosts/The Black Tambourines), Natural Selection was released via Greenway Records in January 2019.
“I Know Where Love Comes From” opens Natural Selection. The song is a rush of grittiness ala the New York Dolls and The Stooges with dashes of 60s pop. As the song reaches the halfway point it attacks with its menacing guitar solo and stop and start build up. Released as the first single for Natural Selection with a video by Chris Wood featuring animations from Dominic Oliver, it isn’t hard to see how this fizzy garage punk track wins over listeners. “21st Century Boy” brings in surf guitar, garage punk dynamics and extremely catchy choruses. With lyrics such as “Life brings little joy/For a 21st century boy” the song searches for good times in a troubled world, “Frontline” slows things down a bit with rolling basslines, acoustic guitar and 60s garage catchiness. With lyrics “Make what I want when I feel like I should/I’m always holding you down/Strong when I’m bold and I’m tough like a bull/I’m always holding you down” and “Gonna take what I need from you/Gonna push my way to the front of the queue/Dress myself when the daylight shines/Gonna push my way to the front of the line” the song emphasizes the need to push forward from moments that hold you back with an undeniable looseness and melancholy. “Igloo” chisels away with intensity, shivering with influences of The Clash, Ramones and Nobunny, as Walmsley sings about someone frigid and closed off with the lyrics “You’ve got frostbite and it shows/Your loves like the arctic snows/I’m gonna break down the walls to your igloo heart”.
“Jay Walking” is an up tempo R&B punk rave up track with lyrics “I don’t need an indication/I just got a revelation/I’m jay walking” that delivers a message of making your own path, not waiting for others to tell you what to do along with a helping of impatience, determination and rowdiness. “Conscientious Objector” brings in an Undertones meets Johnny Thunders guitar style in between the soulful drum fills from Harrison and in the pocket bass playing of Oliver as Walmsley sings of rejecting the daily chaos in the society and world around him, “Woke Up In Paradise” is a slower, mid tempo rock song that features catchy harmonies recalling surf, 60s pop and 50s rock and roll. With lyrics "If I dreaming/I don’t wanna wake up” and “When life gives me lemons and I’m feeling blue/I just juice that yellow into something new” the song delves into finding some kind of happiness in the real world by taking a different look at things when life goes sour. “Pop My Clogs” ends Natural Selection with full garage punk enthusiasm and catchy 60s pop vocals. “Pop My Clogs” is a 70s UK slang that usually means to die, but in the context of this song it may mean something else altogether. The listener is left to decide this as the character in this song ducks and dodges through the verses, choruses and dredges of monotonous everyday life, seeming to be more interested in having a dangerously good time at all costs.
On Natural Selection, Fruit Tones deliver an album that is ripe with multiple meanings about adjusting and surviving in the environments of our modern times despite the negative outliers that are all around us. With “the sass of The Dolls, the fizz of Four Loco, the Stones-esque looseness, juiced into 14 tracks”, on Natural Selection, Fruit Tones evoke a garage punk aesthetic with surf and 60s pop influences that evolves with the uncontrollable urge to have a good time.
Show 801 (Originally Aired on November 16th, 2019)(Richard Berry & The Pharoahs, Bob Dylan & Johnny Cash, Fruit Tones):
1. Richard Berry & The Pharoahs - Louie, Louie
2. Takeshi Terauchi - South Pier
3. The Wailers - Shanghied
4. Feet - Petty Thieving
5. Guided by Voices - Heavy Like the World
6. Mikal Cronin - Caravan
7. Ron Leary - The Ancient Seeds of Ojibway
8. Leonard Cohen - Happens to the Heart
9. Bonnie "Prince" Billy - The Devil's Throat
10. Bob Dyan & Johnny Cash - I Still Miss Someone (Take 5)
11. Bob Dyan & Johnny Cash - Big River (Take 1)
12. The High Dials - Work of Fiction
13. Mount Eerie & Julie Dorian - Widows
14. Dead Ghosts - Drugstore Supplies
15. Dusty Mush - Not Wild
16. Oblivions - Can't Last Another Night
17. Needs - Walk, Cycle, or Take Transit Like Jehu
18. Little Girls - Tambourine
19. The Presence - Disease
20. Juliana Hatfield - Can't Stand Losing You
21. The Hold Steady Star - 18
22. The Replacements - Anywhere's Better Than Here (Live University of Wisconsin - 6/2/1989)
23. Fruit Tones - Casual Boy
24. Fruit Tones - Jay Walking
25. Corridor - Goldie
26. Sprinters - 3's & 4's
27. Steve & James O-L - Country State of Mind
28. Jose Contreras - Grand Central Station
To download this weeks program, visit CJAM's schedule page for Revolution Rock and download the file for November 16.
Show 802 was a repeat of an all James Brown episode of the program that originally aired in February. You can download/stream this episode here and find the playlist here.
