Up until a few years ago, the Los Angeles group Fime were mostly known as the backing band for indie rocker Jay Som, though they also did some recording on their own. After COVID forced Jay Som to cancel a European tour, Fime recorded their impressive 2022 debut album Sweeter Memory. Jay Som mastermind Melina Duterte engineered, produced, and mixed the album, and she played trumpet on one track. Now, Fime are back with a fired-up new single.
Melina Duterte once again served as producer, engineer, and mixer for Fime's new song "Better Half Of A Dollar," but it doesn't sound anything like Jay Som. Instead, "Better Half Of A Doller" is a vrooming, propulsive rock stomper with growled hardcore-adjacent vocals from Beto Brakmo. The press release mentions Fucked Up as a comparison, and I really hate to repeat that kind of thing in a blog post, but this really does sound like Fucked Up. That's a good thing. "Better Half Of A Dollar" already appeared in a recent Thrasher video for pro skater Shawn Hale, and now the song is out for real. Watch its Hailey Ruffner-directed video below.
Fime will open Earlimart's 3/1 Trouble & Tremble 20th-anniversary show at San Francisco's Noise Pop Festival.
