Freur
Doot-Doot

Freur was a British quintet dedicated to electronic pop music, active from 1983 to 1987 and credited with a couple of albums, after which they decided to change a few elements and adopt a new name, Underworld, forging ahead with moderate success to the present day, amidst various vicissitudes and style changes, oscillating between techno, drum&bass, slightly more guitar-heavy rock, and so on.

Their debut was electrifying: when their first single "Doot Doot" hit the airwaves and video channels in 1983, there was an immediate sensation of having a new significant musical entity on the market, one capable of rivalling Depeche Mode, Japan, Talk Talk, and other pioneers in the field of high-quality catchy electronic pop. However, the breakthrough remained unmatched, and subsequent singles, although pleasant, failed to recapture the charm of their debut piece. For instance, the second single "Runaway", despite being bolstered and refined by the sax, is rather insignificant, as is the third "Riders In The Night", despite the effective backing vocals.

"Doot Doot" (the song), placed right at the start of the album, is irresistibly captivating: deep sounds, a brilliant and very dynamic arrangement, the singsong voice of the frontman Karl Hyde with its peculiar accent (he hails from Wales), the numerous, striking synthesizers in action (three members of the group skillfully use electronic crickets, Roland drum slaps, enveloping carpets, and hissing glissandos), the absolutely "hooking" and original refrain, with Hyde's voice drying up from the reverb present in the verse and coming to the forefront to boldly declare the piece's quirky title. The rich, bouncing backing vocals and the acoustic drum thumps that the bald, excellent Bryn Burrows introduces at a certain point are also effective, injecting power into the song's remarkable melodic structure. In short, this is a truly unmissable peak of the time's commercial new wave.

The rest of the album, not up to the incipit as mentioned, is not bad either. Freur sought to exploit it to the fullest by releasing another four songs of the ten present as singles, though they failed to maintain the initial success. Perhaps this was also because the lineup did not feature a potential sex-symbol to showcase in videos and on stage, even though the five musicians meticulously curated their image by dressing, applying makeup and wigs according to the extravagant and flashy customs of the time.

Freur's second and last work, prophetically titled "Get Us Out Of Here" and released in 1986, was a bit of a flop, leading to the decision to reinvent themselves with a different name, record label, and genre, just as commercial music had evolved to become more rhythmic and dry, less romantic.

A small curiosity: the group's initial designation was actually a simple squiggle shaped like a little snake. When signing their record contract, the English CBS insisted they adopt an actual name, and they reached the compromise of associating their symbol with the word "Freur", which has no specific meaning.