It’s difficult to track the development of genres of music. Just when rock and roll hit its zenith so many decades ago, heavy metal came to the forefront and branches off a sect of rock that persists to this day. Well into the 21st century, music has more genres than salmon has scales. The only way to innovate and develop may not be to come up with a new style of music, but to build a better mousetrap using a combination of existing designs.
For bands like A Foreign Affair, the blending of genres like post-hardcore, alternative, and electronic music is how it guides that innovation into an unpredictable future, and its show at Harlow’s on Aug. 21 will be another opportunity to embrace that future along with the fans and audiences searching for their shepherd.
“I would definitely call us post-something. Post-hardcore, post-rock, everything and anything with post at the beginning,” says guitarist/synth player Jared Cambridge when given the daunting task of describing the genre that fits A Foreign Affair.
Launching from the umbrella genre of alternative, the band shows influences from a myriad of different rock genres in the same way that Louisiana gumbo includes influences from French and West African cuisine. Whereas many bands attempt to establish its sound and stick with that template, A Foreign Affair prefers to keep audiences guessing, as each release is noticeably different from the last.
“First we were kind of in that proggy math rock … sound, and then we fell into more of an indie rock vibe,” Cambridge says. “Now we’re leaning more towards finding a balance between that heavy sound that we kind of fell in love with, and our old roots.”
The sound that the band is seeking to produce is very much intentional, with production quality being a big part of its albums. Elements of alternative, electronic and post-hardcore music converge to make a sound that will remind audiences of Minus the Bear with a deeper and more tragic flair. The atmospheric and ethereal noise of songs like “Golden Throne” and “SOS” show that A Foreign Affair is crafting a discography that complements the range of genres it touches while fitting cleanly into none of them.