At first glance it’s retro futurism ahoy here: Christ, the first tune’s called ‘Synthesise’ so you can kind of guess what’s coming… or not.
Roll up, roll up; we got vintage sounding keyboards by the dozen and seventies vocals at two for the price of one.
A bad thing? Not necessarily; it’s certainly a la mode and music has it’s fashions, obviously, but it’s a hazardous path to tread; with dexterity it breathes new life into forgotten aesthetics; with navigation via a clapped out torch in the fog you’re in danger zone.
The aforementioned ‘Synthesise’ is jolly nice in an end of the night, vaguely delirious, smile-along way; unfortunately things don’t progress in quite the way your optimistic, bouncing along reviewer hopes.
The album proceeds with levity; by the time we get to ‘Tiny Little Sparks’, things even become a little less self-concious and – saint’s preserve us – it rocks out a bit; often a cause for a well deserved shudder but it actually works; some passion over poise; the enthusiasm doesn’t quite follow through to the end however.
After that a welcome return to more cautious, self-examination might seem a good idea.
There’s a drift throughout the whole affair from here on in however and it’s hard not to find it a little confused about its identity; all quite safe and it’s not going to offend anyone; will it cause rioting in the streets in the rush to buy it though? No, it will not.
There’s big production on here but it’s not enough; some electronics, guitars, bit of bass, all that carry on, like an early 80’s band just the right side of credible who always said they’d not do Top of the Pops if they came calling, but come the day were straight in there for the Christmas special with mascots strapped to the instruments and the drummer sulking at the back.
As we prowl onwards, futurism unfortunately gradually leeches out the window and we’re left with singularly, defiantly retro.
Track eight ‘Sparks to Fire’, though one of the strongest here, ironically, even gives us a direct reading of a letter Nikola Tesla wrote in 1900 where he feverishly thought he was receiving communiques from aliens above.
“…Faint and uncertain though they were, they have given me a deep conviction and foreknowledge, that are long all human beings on this globe, as one, will turn their eyes to the firmament above…”
I’m all for that.
That’s firmament above though; not behind.
There’s promise here, no doubt about that, but a few steps forward rather than back would improve things no end.
Words: Andrew Morrison
