I Felt Called by Fine China (Review)

Seven years have passed since Fine China released their last album, 2018’s Not Thrilled. During that time, frontman Rob Withem began a slow, subtle shift from the band’s ’80s-influenced pop sound. Whereas early Fine China releases were clearly indebted to The Smiths, New Order, and the like, 2022’s Trees at Night and 2023’s Eyes in the Water explored a more ambient sound that owed as much to Mannheim Steamroller and Windham Hill Records as late-period Talk Talk.

Indeed, as I wrote in my Eyes in the Water review, “it’s clear that… Fine China no longer want to be ‘just’ a pop band. They have bigger aspirations, aspirations that are leading them down some interesting paths.” Which brings us to I Felt Called, arguably the most ambitious and sprawling Fine China album to date as Withem seeks to balance his pop and atmospheric impulses.

Don’t worry, these twelve songs still contain plenty of Smiths and New Order callbacks. With their jaunty bass lines and chiming guitars à la Messrs. Rourke and Marr, “Fraught with Danger” and “Gonna Need a Vacation” are the closest the album comes to “classic” Fine China. But in keeping with those more recent EPs and singles, I Felt Called is also characterized by an ambience that makes it more expansive and cinematic.

This is particularly true on the album’s “epics,” like “No Long Face” and “Desert of My Dreams,” the latter of which nearly crosses the eight-minute mark. (A near-eternity compared to the rest of the band’s catalog.) But you can also hear it on songs like “Mauve Decade” and its rolling piano and subtle melodic shifts or the drifting synths and reverb-laden guitars that underscore “Nightshade (You Can’t See).”

This more expansive and meandering sound does mean that I Felt Called lacks the punch and concision of Fine China’s previous releases, which were more focused on delivering catchy hooks and singalong choruses. However, that same expansiveness feels quite apropos for the album’s lyrical musings.

Though not a “lyrics guy” — in a recent Indie Vision Music interview, he confesses to waiting until the night before recording to finish his lyrics — Withem still taps into the same mix of nostalgia, existential lament, and mid-life mopery as label mate Jason Martin (Starflyer 59). But whereas Martin’s lyrics are characterized by simplicity and bluntness, Withem’s lyrics are more abstract and even stream-of-consciousness. I might be tempted to call them “indulgent” — if I didn’t find them so relatable at times, that is.

The pining starts immediately on “Television Set” with regret for a material-oriented existence and longing for a simpler time (“I just wanna watch the television/To get back to 1987/When hearts were live”) while “Say Please” contains Pauline ruminations on sin (“I have thoughts about where things started/That I want to keep to myself locked tight/And I realized this is not my style/The greed and envy ruling my mind”) and looks even further back in time to find some salvation (“I want things like at the dawn of life/When everything was fine”).

On the title track, Withem wonders, “How could I be so lost in the dark?/How could I be so damned contemptible?” whereas “Mauve Decade” contains the album’s most striking lament (“I’ve taken every winding road/And it seems as though/I’ll never cease to roam/I’ll never see the lights of home”) — a lament driven even further home by those aforementioned melodic shifts.

The album’s most powerful moment, however, is “Desert of My Dreams,” as Withem confesses to being confounded by everything around him and living a life where “every day is through the rain to me” and “all I know is memories of yore.” I’m leery to read too much into ambiguous lyrics — and I fully admit that my own middle-age melancholy might be coloring my interpretation, as my kids and parents alike grow older and closer to leaving me — but the song’s final moments seem to hint at a Tree of Life-esque reunion and reconciliation that’s made all the more affecting by the lush, layered production, surging guitars, and yearning vocals.

Fine China have come a long way since writing indie-pop hits like “We Rock Harder Than You Ever Knew” and “Labor Saving Device.” (Which, just to be clear, I still love.) I’ve been listening to Withem and Co. for 25 years now, and their music continues to expand and age gracefully, becoming a surprising and welcome companion for middle age.