Video Premiere: Tomar & the FCs Get Animated
By Raoul Hernandez, September 25, 2020, 11:33am, Earache!
“Like Tomar & the FCs’ 2016 debut Heart Attack, sophomore LP Rise Above clocks 10 songs at a hair over 30 minutes, a formula that worked like gangbusters for classic Memphis and Muscle Shoals platters,” wrote local R&B specialist Thomas Fawcett in August. “The local quintet delivers a cocktail of Southern soul and country funk with an aggressive rock edge.”
Taught, elastic, stone cold gold Sixties/Seventies rhythm-n-groove, Rise Above never comes off retro, but rather timeless, like the Black Pumas, but preceding them. The vinyl’s thick with hits, “Fine Time” setting up initial single drop “Innocence,” a showstopper up there with the mainstream breakthroughs of Raphael Saadiq and Aloe Blacc. Finishes Fawcett:
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“Nowadays, they’re far less committed to re-creating the classic Stax sound than they were four years ago – think less Bar-Kays and more Alabama Shakes – and that proves a welcome shift.”
Today’s video premiere for “Fine Time” pops with animation from Hannah McClure, with music and lyrics from frontman Tomar Williams.
“The guys and myself were throwing around ideas for a lyric video and shot [a message] over to Shaun Brennan, CEO of Splice Records,” details Williams, whose Rise Above came out on the Houston imprint. “Due to the pandemic and not being around one another to film a normal [clip], Shaun knew this young lady Hannah Wolf that put together really cool animation. She started sending over snippets of what she was working on and we were blown away. It was an honor to work with her.”
As classy and memorable as the album itself, Wolf’s visuals underscore Rise Above at its best, easy contender for year-end local Top 10 lists.
“Thank you so much, we appreciate you loving the new album and it means a lot to us,” emails Williams. “You know, when I actually listen to the album from front to finish, I get a different feel from when we were writing the songs. You really don’t know what the picture is gonna look like until it’s finished. Like all other albums, putting this album together was a song-by-song basis and sometimes you gotta make sure everything flows in the direction you’re actually going for.
“Being influenced by so many different genres in many different eras of what soul music means and stands for, it intrigued us to explore and to capture some of those flavors and implement them into Rise Above! Personally, I would rather lean more toward the side of timeless than retro.”
Done.
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