filous - For Love EP

Filous
For Love EP
2017
Spotify

For Love is the new EP from Austrian producer filous. filous at just 20 years old has already released his debut EP to a great deal of fanfare. filous tries to make electronic sounding music but uses real instrumentation creating this really interesting blend of styles. You get the really warm sounds of the instruments he chooses to use, but you also get this really distinct dance vibe. On his previous EP "How Hard I Try" was the clear standout with James Hersey providing the vocal. It was deep, dancey yet still maintained a really great artistry to it. That is somewhat missing from For Love where the songs all sort of tick all the same boxes one after the other. The music is really beautiful and complex, but not all that exciting. You keep waiting for something to really blow you away or at least move the needle but that moment never comes. "Can't Wait" is so overly complex that the instrumentation overtakes the vocal making it feel totally disjointed. If filous was to simplify things and get back to the basics of what this project was about it might help things but as it is you end up just being a bit bored and uninspired. "How Hard I Try" was delicate but broke through that to a point where it actually filled the room, these songs seem to just shrink away into their own little worlds and never lets you really be a part of what is going on.

"For Love" is the one shot at something that sort of bangs, but the call and response, the tropical house-lite vibes all feel jumbled. Even when the groove hits on "Knots" it's so slight and really withers away. I'm torn writing this because the EP is not bad, not in any way, it just seems like it is misguided. filous seems to have forgotten what made his first EP so special and instead focused more on creating something complex. I really listened to this thing probably five times trying to mine something out of it, but it just ends up being a bit of a bore. The talent is clearly there, but this album just doesn't cut it. Sorry filous.

4.2 out of 10