A few months back the Tidal Wave of Indifference took a look back at the career of Dundee’s Laeto, near legendary in the Scottish music sphere, but a band that had lain dormant until the surprise release of a third album late last year.

We’re not promising a series of ‘where are they now’-style features, but the Laeto release was swiftly followed by the surprise inclusion in Pendulum Man’s top ten 2010 albums of the third album by Amusement Parks on Fire.

Surprise, because we didn’t even know it existed.

The indie finger of fame can be a fickle beast. With a debut album out in 2004, Amusement Parks were being touted by that music weekly that everyone loves to hate (or hates to love in Tidal Wave’s case) alongside Engineers, Serena-Maneesh, the Radio Dept and the Morning After Girls as part of the utterly non-existent ‘nu-gaze’ scene.

Good old NME, utterly inventing music genres. But it would be difficult to deny that the mid- noughties did see a smattering of bands with a healthy reverb and feedback obsession rise to some level of prominence, emulating My Bloody Valentine, Ride and others that encompassed the shoegazing concept.

Shoegaze, nu-gaze, SEE!!! Those IPC sub-editors have to earn a crust somehow, eh?

Top of the pile had to be Amusement Parks though. As well as undoubtedly being the heaviest of the groups, they almost certainly were the best exponents of taking that simple pop hook and layering with a metric tonne of noise.

Amusement Parks on Fire 2011 (Michael Feerick far right)

Early momentum from the self-titled debut was built upon by the release of album number two, Out of the Angeles. MTV2 pounced on lead single, In Flight, an anthemic slab of distorted riffs. World domination beckoned.

Or did it?

Apparently not. The band all but vanished, bubbling back up briefly in 2009 for a short tour that took in Edinburgh’s Cabaret Voltaire with the imperious Gothenburg Address as support.

That third album – Road Eyes – recorded in California did eventually appear, just not in this country, hence our utterly bewilderment at it popping up in a ‘best of’ list.

Amusement Parks main man Michael Feerick spoke exclusively to the Tidal Wave of Indifference about what the hell went wrong:

“We spent the best part of a year and a half-ish working on the record, maybe longer. Though to be honest a fair portion of that time was spent procrastinating at shows in Silverlake and Echo Park and hanging out with friends! We took some time away from recording to go on tour with The Happy Mondays and Psychedelic Furs, which was kind of a bizarre line-up but quite fun, and we shot a couple of videos and did local LA shows and such.

“But anyway we tried out a lot of mixers and spent a relatively long time getting the master über-perfect and finally finished the album about this time last year.”

Sounds perfectly innocuous. What band hasn’t kicked back and had some fun while recording? What band hasn’t fitted in a tour or two, although maybe not all have had the dubious pleasure of playing with the Happy Mondays.

“I guess we were eager to get the album out in the US to coincide with the tour. It came out in the States and Japan in September, and we toured the US in support of it with The Boxer Rebellion” continues Michael.

“But by the time we were looking to set up a release here, with the nature of downloading as it is, it was really hard to interest a European label in releasing it here. It’s already been out freely available online for some time. So that’s the rather depressing reality of the situation I guess.”

Cover for the ill-fated Road Eyes

Depressing indeed and a problem many acts continue to face. But also hugely ironic for a British band who decamped to the States, having been unable to get an album named ‘Out of the Angeles’ released over there, to be faced with the reverse problem. Thankfully, Michael’s philosophical…

“We don’t feel especially victimised in any way, I’m pretty sure we’ve all downloaded some commercial media at some point without providing the requisite level of financial restitution. I actually feel sincerely appreciative and lucky to have been able to make the albums we’ve made. To have the necessary amount of money to do so is a pretty rare commodity now.”

Amusement Parks on Fire have been beset with problems in recent years but Michael and the band – completed by Daniel Knowles, Peter Dale, Gavin Poole and Joe Hardy – are looking to the future as much as they are happy to talk about the past. With some misty-eyed nostalgia, Michael can’t put his finger on the initial inspiration for the band (“I was such a different person back then!”) but is clearly excited about what could happen next: “We’ve been taking it in various directions and having fun with the different ways it could go. I’m not even sure that what I or we do next will be under that name or be something totally new. It’s quite a fun point to be at, but also rather scary!

“Right now we all tend to be at various corners of the world a lot of the time. We all have different musical and artistic endeavours we’re working on. I’m doing some acoustic shows which are really fun; I’m enjoying the subtlety and intimacy of it.”

So are we looking at the end of the band?

“Artistically it’s simultaneously liberating and strangely bewildering to have made three records you’re really proud of. I feel like they’re very different and situational, but give each other context and so, as a whole, the Amusement Parks thing feels kind of complete.”

That’s clear not a definitive “that’s it” but it’s evident that minds are definitely wandering. So there’s never been a better time to revisit (or indeed) catch up with their music.

For a taster, here’s a track from each of their albums.

As a wee footnote, when we were searching for the Road Eyes cover art, the album seems to now be freely available on Amazon without any hint of it being an import, which is how Tidal Wave got its copy. A small victory at least.