Fickle Friends – “Cry Baby”

Fickle Friends – “Cry Baby”

UK quintet Fickle Friends make excellent indie pop with grooves galore and inventive synth work. While they ready their debut, they’ve dropped “Cry Baby,” a nice ’80s-inflected one-off to hold us over. It’s a bouncy, infectious jam with super groovy bass, playful synth stutters, and slapping drums. Frontwoman Natti Shiner’s tender, pure vocals cut through with a subtle edge as she sings on the hook, “Why do we all get it wrong?/You were right all along/I’m a crybaby, I’m a crybaby.” Shiner’s voice and emotion and the enveloping highly danceable rhythms make for a great incongruity that will either have you dancing or in your feelings. But you will certainly be doing something. Here’s what Shiner had to say about the song:

I watched the John Waters film on New Year’s Day with someone I’d just started hanging out with and the title Cry Baby definitely triggered something in me. As quite a cynical person I’m often very quick to question both my own and other people’s capacity to feel…emotion…anything, and that’s what “Cry Baby” is about really. That and the fact I found it quite odd to miss someone I’d only just met.

Listen.

Live dates:

08/18 Hasselt, Belgium @ Pukkelpop
08/26 Reading, UK @ Reading Festival
08/27 Wetherby, UK @ Leeds Festival
09/03 Brighton, UK @ Together the People Festival
09/04 Portmeirion, UK @ Festival Number 6
09/10 Isle of Wight, UK @ Bestival
10/25 Paris, France @ Pitchfork Paris
11/03 London, UK @ Heaven

Here’s a photo of the band:

Fickle Friends

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