There are two strawberry shortcake cookies sitting on the table in front of me, right now. They're wrapped in a plastic wrap. Homemade by the proprietors of a new coffeehouse that cropped up close to my house a few weeks ago. It's nothing too special, but the cookies are out of this world. They've got white chocolate chips and they're baked just long enough so as to feel as if they're still half-baked. I know what I've got sitting there waiting for me. I know that I'm just moments away from the entire mood of today turning from grumbly and stunted, to better - or tolerable.
The cookies are of little consequence, in regards to the Oxford, England, band Fixers, but they do a similar thing to what the group does. They turn things around, creating a whole new attitude, pulling it from the clutches of what seems so desperate. And they do it all so simply, with synths that remind us of the feeling that the ice cream truck brings as it coasts slowly through neighborhoods, seeking out those clusters of kids with dirty hands, wadded up dollar bills and a constant craving for frozen treats at any hot hour of the day. They do it with what could only be described as sunny-ish vocals from singer Jack Goldstein. It's a complete package that reminds us of the smallness of everything and the simple impact that something so small can have on a person.
"Iron Deer Dream," taped here at 2KHz at Church Studios in Crouch End, London, is a song that features someone called out for their homicidal tendencies, but the entire narrative seems to take place on an idyllic day. It all feels like a new dawn, like a perfect dinner, great conversation and those crinkled thoughts melting away into the clear blue, seaside waters that can't be all that far away. Goldstein later sings, "I'll break your heart without warning," but damn if it doesn't sound like something that we wouldn't mind experiencing.