Trust Fund is essentially Bristol-based songwriter Ellis Jones, whose records and tours are rounded out by a rotating cast of musician friends from around the UK. Seems Unfair is his second album of 2015. Back in February, Jones released Trust Fund's debut No One's Coming for Us, which he broke down in a track-by-track feature with unusually transparent remarks on his inspirations. He says, "I wanted this song to sound like Radiator Hospital" about three different tracks, and then repeats that line about Swearin', Mount Eerie, Tony Molina, Waxahatchee, the Field Mice, Weezer, and Elliott Smith.
Some bands bristle when asked about their influences, as if disclosing them will reveal the shocking truth that they are not original to the world. Jones often frets about people continuing to refer to Trust Fund as a DIY outfit since he signed to Welsh indie Turnstile and received a small advance to make Seems Unfair in a studio rather than his bedroom. Although he's hardly breached intervention-worthy excess, his openness about his artistic debts reads as a very deliberate way of keeping the audience-facing aspect of the DIY ethos foregrounded: this is what made me do this; no form of inspiration is too new to be legitimate.
Even without the handy birdspotters' guide, Seems Unfair makes its references overt: It's an indie rock record with the bright, shaggy-dog qualities of early Superchunk, and it often recalls early Los Campesinos! minus the hyperactive streak. You could isolate patches that sound like Pavement or Dinosaur Jr., too, but Seems Unfair is much more distinct than its predecessor, thanks in part to the precise production of MJ from Hookworms. Jones' extremely polarizing voice also helps matters (in a way): He sings in a chalky adenoidal tone that cuts through its surrounds like wax through watercolor.
Hooks only occasionally pierced the fog of Trust Fund's debut; here, strange and beautiful boy-girl harmonies cut through the careening fuzz, giving extra shape to these songs. There are folky vocal touches in the breakdown of "4th August" and on the title track, where the band cuts through Jones' hushed words with formal choral chants. That song's enjoyably odd beginnings are wasted on a generic, puppyish end, although other tracks on Seems Unfair bring an almost prog sensibility to indie pop: "Scared II" starts full tilt, hangs a while in a highly strung, one-note guitar barrage, and ends on a triumphal cascade of vocals interlaced with a careening solo.
The relentlessly peppy pace carries along Jones' lyrics, which are as guileless as his approach to interviews. He writes about immediate fears but also the fear of change, often with a similarly simple pathos to Waxahatchee's Katie Crutchfield. "Michal's Plan" outlines someone's failed intentions to swim every day; instead, their bathing suit is "wet and festering in a Tesco bag at the foot of [their] bed." Seems Unfair is full of characters who seem to struggle with everyday minutiae, but Jones throws a magnifying glass on what may seem to more worldly observers like small stakes. Supermarkets crop up a lot in his lyrics, their shiny floors the sites of emotional reconciliation ("Big Asda") and the stages for great triumphs: "Baby, we walk like dreamers do/ Skating through the Free-From to world foods," Jones sings on "Dreamers".
Sometimes his plainspoken quality is too much. The driving "Scared II" is about Jones' fear of his partner dying: "Do a wee, brush my teeth, and you'll be gone forever," he sings. Twee is a worn-out, gendered term that's best retired, but Jones' self-effacing use of the word "wee" kind of makes you long for a good shower of territorial pissings. Maybe it's intentional though: Toward the end of the song, he asks his reluctant lover if they "still want to freeze my verrucas?" It's not appetizing, but then Trust Fund are at their best when they throw in a soured note or stall the pace just as a song threatens to get too comforting. Their tussle between coziness and dissonance betrays a surfeit of ambitious ideas, which isn't often a problem with modern indie rock acolytes.
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