Tag: synth-pop

Beyond Reverence: Deadlight Dance’s Debut Album

According to the confines of youth cultures of yore, I shouldn’t like Marlborough-based duo Deadlight Dance’s debut album, Beyond Reverence, as while attempts to fit into my new surroundings of Marlborough meant my teenage musical tastes meandered in a rock direction, I drew the line at “goth,” but on matured and eclectic reflection, still don’t like this, I love it……

Released on Friday (15th September 2023) the sublime Beyond Reverence will be digitally available via Ray Records. You can download it via Bandcamp, stream from all platforms, and a special small run of limited-edition CDs will be available through the band; I suggest you take one of these options, it goes way beyond my expectations.

The two-and-a-half-minute sombre bassline peregrination overture to the opening track, Nice Things sets mood and pace, and I’m knee-deep in retrospective melancholy, the desired effect I’d imagine. Contemplating growing up in suburban Essex, a friend of my elder brother, so cool attired in the look of the new romantic, all frilly shirt sleeves, black eyeliner, all Adam Ant, whereas I? Standard hand-me-downs! He gave my brother a new wave electronica mix tape I adored. Echoing the pop of the era, ergo, I was unaware though already accustomed, to a degree, just later washed away with the carefree and whimsical hip hop and electro fashion, pre-acts jumping the incensed bandwagon post Grandmaster Melle Mel’s The Message.

To reaccept the dejected goth element of new wave electronica would take puberty, frustration at the bling and gun direction hip hop was heading and attempts to acclimatise to the west country rural village I found myself dumped in. Solace in the wild romantic fantasy of soft metal and general rock like Springsteen I discovered, but those “goth” pupils of St Johns would require a radical shift to modify myself to. One of those St John’s pupils was Tim Emery, one half of the Deadlight Dance duo, something we can laugh about now, but then, I wasn’t ready for the plunge, no matter how newfound schoolfriends supplied me with Sisters of Mercy and The Fields of the Nephilim tapes. I ventured as far as the Cure, but only to improve my chances of getting off with girls; it failed miserably, but that’s another story for another time!

The origins of Deadlight Dance stem back to 1989, the year I left St Johns, when Tim formed a short-lived Sixth Form goth band with Nick Fletcher. Friends for the best part of thirty-five years, the two periodically worked on music together. Born from lockdown, Deadlight Dance is a project to merge their favoured retrospective bands, The Cult and The Mission, with contemporary acts like Bragolin, Actors, Twin Tribes and Molchat Doma.

Story goes, during an initial jam Tim “finally convinced Nick to sing,” a turnaround from the original collective idea to source guest singers. But it’s in Nick’s deep growling vocals and the elegant synths of the second tune, Innocent Beginnings, and up-tempo haunting Infectious where I get these reflections of the roots of gothic, the ominous, Bowie-esque component of new wave electronica, particularly of Joy Division, and herein lies my reasoning for taking to Beyond Reverence, even if I’m not about to dye what’s left of my hair black anytime soon!

At eleven tracks strong the album is epic, evolved from an original intention to record an EP, another crisp and proficient achievement for Nick Beere’s Mooncalf Studios. While the sound is retrospective themes are of contemporary social conscience, Innocent Beginnings comments on the environment, the following, Dark Circles about autism. Though the single Missives from the Sisters sticks to true goth prose, a classic tale of misogyny set in the time of witchcraft, and being “goth” it levels on this topic appropriately, and duly sullen. Though there’s a lot here which suggests you need not be in the niche, it has wider appeal than I imagined it might.

There’s an interesting instrumental interlude, Samuri Sunrise, which reprises a Sunset at the finale, with four tunes between them, two unorthodox cover choices. A quirky interpretation of Lou Reed’s I’m Waiting for my Man I get, but the latter I was far from suspecting, a sorrowing rendition of Heartbreak Hotel you must hear for yourself!

Deadlight Dance are picking up radio play, and while usually they go out with pre-recorded synths and drum tracks, they equally operate acoustically on mandocellos and mandolins. If you came to my birthday bash early enough to find me semi-sober, you’ll have seen them, they’re opening the Saturday shift at the Beehive at Swindon Shuffle this weekend, alongside Concrete Prairie, the Lonely Road Band, Atari Pilot and Liddington Hill. Thursday 21st sees them at Nick Beere’s open mic at the Mildenhall Horseshoe, and Saturday 23rd they support Ghost Dance at Bath’s coolest record shop Chapter 22. They are delighted to be included on the bill of the legendary All that is Divine VI Festival in London in 2024, and with big plans I’m left with no doubt this album will push this the maximum.

Beyond Reverence is up for pre-order on Bandcamp, released tomorrow 15th September 2023. Find Deadlight Dance’s Website HERE, and on Facebook & Instagram. Find your inner goth and cheer them up a bit with this nice present, I enjoyed it so much I’m going to see if my lace trim gothic corset still fits and try it with this spikey rivet leather neck collar; somebody draw me a pentagram pronto!  

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Deadlight Dance: Innocent Beginnings

Marlborough’s darkwave-goth duo, Deadlight Dance push their boundaries to new limits with their second single, Innocent Beginnings this week, and it’s a corker of goth perilous poignancy…..

Echoes of Human League synth prowess rain from this sombre tune, with foreboding warning vocals of Joy Division, yet the theme is environmental, something though historically consistent in pop, generally, surprisingly overlooked by the alternative subgenre of post-punk gothic of the eighties. You’d have thought with the stereotypical gloomy disposition of the genre, climate change was a missed opportunity for electronica, and/or post-punk goth subject matter; though maybe you know different, I’m no expert.

While it has been done, eighties misconceptions of the subject often obscure the severity of the topic, and place them subtly irreverent by today’s standards. Best I can conjure from memory is The Pixies’ track Monkey Gone to Heaven, of which the context of pollution and the depleting ozone layer is missed amidst the screeching vocals of Black Francis, A Forest by the Cure, which always felt more Little Red Riding Hood than eco-warrior, Talking Heads’ (Nothing but) The Flowers which is all too satirical art-pop, experimentally awash with soukous, for some bizarre reason, and even to endure ten minutes of Giorio Moroder’s less-inspiring disco synth moment in Cerrone’s Supernature only to discover elements of environmental concerns conclude with humankind obliterated by some kind of “creature from below!” 

It makes this single of an interesting composition, sounding so retrospective; precision with environmental subject matter came much later than this track imitates, therefore musical trends had changed by the time it’s more astutely covered. Ethereal nineties and noughties alternative rock certainly made full use of the topic, from Mors Syphilitica to All About Eve, but Innocent Beginnings, as is Deadlight’s design, it seems, is to recreate the sound of alternative eighties, leaving you pondering if Joy Division were at their peak now, climate change would have been the theme of Atmosphere, and might have come out sounding akin to this. Not forgoing, environmental groups would clasp hold of it, rather than just the creators of Stranger Things!  

Though, having said all of the gloomy irreversible theme of Innocent Beginnings which basically suggests it’s all too late to do something about it now, the video is contradictorily recorded in the setting of the pretty village of Aldbourne; hardly the dystopian landscape of a post-apocalyptic earth wrecked by our own hand! And in turn, makes me come over all Greta Thunberg and contemplate at least if we try, we can say we tried; put that in your pipe and smoke it, Nick Fletcher and Tim Emery of Deadlight Dance! Damn good track though, guys, and produced by Nick Beere at Mooncalf Studios, we look forward to hearing more from these guys.

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The Bakesys, Thursday Night on my Television

The Bakesys have a new album out this week, to get your flux capacitor firing on all cylinders……

Though Perry Como got the ball rolling for a possible “10 songs which stick in your head” nonsense article today, I’ve been pleasantly reminded of eighties German outfit, Trio. A kind of poor man’s Europop Ian Dury, their only UK hit ‘Da Da Da’ definitely fits the bill.

But in turn it reminded me I’ve an album review to prioritise, a track on which reeks of Trio, and not the popular chocolate biscuit of the era. With its upfront ZX Spectrum game backbeat ‘Six O’clock Already‘ is like techno never happened; you can virtually see Jet Set Willy entering the banyan tree.

If you need Google to comprehend that reference, Newbury’s The Bakesys’ ‘Thursday Night on my Television,‘  might skyrocket over your head. Inspired by late eighties third wave ska bands, The Bakesys formed in 1990, and frontman Kevin Flowerdew is now editor of the superlative ska-zine ‘Do The Dog.’
I fondly reviewed their last outpouring, Sentences I’d Like To Hear The End Of, in which a variety of sixties news headlines are given a fourth gen ska makeover to poignant and danceable effect. This latest album is a different ballpark.

Through retrospective compilation, Thursday Night on my Television, relies entirely on that post-punk pop era, where no subgenre in the clutter of youth cultures could avoid the onslaught of electronica. It was a do-or-die age of experimentation, free of the trend of sampling. And unlike the previous Bakesys’ album, there are no samples, just rich of culture references harking of the kind of sounds dripping from that era, and deliberately clunky.


Fun Boy Three’s Our Lips are Sealed gets a counter-reaction, Molly Ringwald gets a mention, in a song akin to Kirsty McColl’s guy down the chip shop, and the best ballad themes around the subject of Bunking Off School, Jumping on Buses, leaving no doubts The Bakesys are either Dr Who, or lived this time, and are reminiscing on both reality-driven romance and fantasising, of John Hughes characters.

With shards of Two-Tone, new wave and post-punk, no pre-electronica subgenre is left behind, as it merges into this experimental period, this album will have you recollecting all from The Damned and The Beat, to Blancmange and Sparks, if you don’t remember ‘Beat the Clock,’ your memory will be jogged by this retrospective outpouring, and in the words of Kenny Everett, “all in the best possible taste!”

For it might take a couple of listens to be fully immersed, for what was avantgarde might now be cliché, The Bakesys home in with such a degree you’re drawn into reliving rather than attributing, like your Harrington jacket, Doc Martins and Fred Perry polo shirt have been hanging in your wardrobe all this time, waiting for you to stop staring at that fading Kim Wilde poster on your wall, and nip to the arcade to play some Space Invaders until a fight breaks out….. which kinda makes it alright.

But, it took me by surprise, expecting ska, when even the most ska-ish track, Money all the Time, has the electronic plod of Depeche Mode. It’s a synth-pop marvel, with a notion to matured retrospection, rather than delinquent melancholy, and it works on a level above the archetypal 80s tribute, to the point I’ll be avoiding white dog shit on the street, and I can smell that bubble gum you used to get in trading cards!

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Atari Pilot’s Right Crew, Wrong Captain

Only gamers of a certain age will know of The Attic Bug. Hedonistic socialiser, Miner Willy had a party in his manor and wanted to retire for the evening. Just how a miner in the eighties could’ve afforded a manor remains a mystery; but that erroneous flaw was the tip of the iceberg. In this ground-breaking ZX Spectrum platform game, the Ribena Kid’s mum appeared to guard Willy’s bedroom, tapping her foot impatiently. Touch this mean rotund mama and she’d kill you, unless you’d tided every bit of leftovers from the bash. Turned out, months after the game’s release, one piece, in the Attic, was impossible to collect. Until this glitch became public knowledge, players were fuming as an intolerable bleeping version of “If I was a Rich Man,” perpetually looped them to insanity.

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I swear, if I hear that tune, even some forty years on I cringe; the haunting memory of my perseverance with the impossible Jetset Willy. Music in videogames has come a long way, thank your chosen deity. Yet in this trend of retrospection I terror at musical artists influenced by these cringeworthy clunky, bleeping melodies of early Mario, or Sonic soundtracks; like techno never happened, what are they thinking of? It was with caution, then, when I pressed play on the new single from Swindon band “Atari Pilot.” I had heard of them, but not heard them. I was pleasantly surprised.

For starters, this is rock, rather than, taken from the band’s name, my preconceived suspicion I would be subject to a lo-fi electronica computer geek’s wet dream. While there is something undeniably retrospective gamer about the sonic synth blasts in Right Crew, Wrong Captain, it is done well, with taste and this track drives on a slight, space-rock tip. Though comparisons are tricky, Atari Pilot has a unique pop sound. No stranger to retrospection, with echoey vocals and a cover akin to an illustration from Captain Pugwash, still this sound is fresh, kind of straddling a bridge between space-rock and danceable indie. Oh, and it’s certainly loud and proud.

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A grower, takes a few listens and I’m hooked. Their Facebook blurb claims to “change the rules of the game, take the face from the name, trade the soul for the fame…I’m an Atari Pilot.” After their debut album “Navigation of The World by Sound” in 2011, a long hiatus took in a serious cancer battle. But Atari Pilot returned in 2018 with an acoustic set at the Swindon Shuffle. The full band gathered once again the following year with live shows and a new set of “Songs for the Struggle.” This will be the title of their forthcoming follow-up album, “When we were Children” being the first single from it, and now this one, “Right Crew, Wrong Captain,” is available from the end of July.

Its theme is of isolation, “and defiance, after the ship has gone down,” frontman Onze informs me. There’s a haunting metaphor within the intelligent lyrics, “you nail yourself to the mast and you pray that everything lasts, you just want to know hope floats, when the water rises, coz it’s gonna rise, take a deep breath and count to ten, sink to the bottom and start again.”

There’s a bracing movement which dispels predefined ideas of indie and progresses towards something encompassing a general pop feel, of bands I’ve highlighted previously, Talk in Code and Daydream Runaways, Atari Pilot would not look out of place billed in a festival line-up with these acts, and would add that clever cross between space-rock with shards of the videogames of yore, yet, not enough to warrant my aforementioned fears of cringeworthy bleeps. Here’s hoping it’s “game over” for that genre. That said, thinking back, when you bought your Atari 2600, if you recall, oldie, you got the entire package of two joysticks and those circler controllers too, as standard; could you imagine that much hardware included with a modern console? Na, mate, one controller, you’ve got to buy others separately.

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So, if decades to come we have a band called X-Box or PlayStation Pilot, I’d be dubious, but Atari gave us quality, a complete package; likewise, with Atari Pilot!

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Courage (Leave it Behind) New Single from Talk in Code

As predicted, the void where live music reviews used to sit will be filled with an abundance of releases from our local music circuit. I’ve a backlog building at Devizine Tower; here’s the first this week, from Swindon’s indie-pop four-piece Talk in Code, and much as we’ve enjoyed watching streams of Chris in his car, yeah, this is more like it, cool.

Some pensive prose swathed in the upbeat eighties-fashioned synth-pop we know Talk in Code have mastered. Courage (Leave it Behind) offers a “wake-up call,” as the press release defines, yet does so with all the hallmarks of another catchy anthem. This lockdown-themed leitmotif hails what you’re probably questioning yourself, “it’s that feeling of realising something is not right and has to be changed. But, knowing what needs to happen and taking action are two very different things…”

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The world will undoubtedly be the different after this pandemic, the unity binding us could potentially tear us apart; did Joy Division predict this?! If not, there’s a ghost, least an inspiration from those early eighties new romantics fused into this contemporary tune, and again, just like the previous singles, while Talk in Code songs sound as if they’d slot into the background of a John Hughes coming-of-age movie, listen again, they also ring modernism in both production and subject.

From its inaugural piano, through its beguiling beat to this cliff-hanging finale which leaves the question open to interpretation, this is an uplifting song; I expected no less though. “Finding the strength to make a change and every bit relevant to these challenging times,” as the blurb continues, is surely up to us, pop doesn’t preach as it once did, rather stages the dilemma for you to solve, and that, in a way makes it that bit up-to-date, rather than a retrospective eighties tribute.

For that reason, Talk in Code are pushing boundaries rather than dwelling, and the reason which found them on BBC Introducing In The West, on The OFI Monday Show, The Premium Blend Radio Show, Swindon 105.5 and Frome FM. It is the reason why the Ocelot, Dave Franklyn of Dancing About Architecture, The Big Takeover, and oh yeah, us, are singing their praises.

Providing optimism as a theme to this single is a biting reality, and Talk In Code still hope to play some of the fifteen festivals that were booked into this year, including M for, Daxtonbury, Concert at the Kings and Newbury Beer Festival along with a showcase for Fierce Panda/Club Fandango, to be rescheduled for later in 2020; hygienically rinsed fingers crossed, and toes.

COURAGE (Leave It Behind) will be released tomorrow, 30th April, on digital download at www.talkincode.co.uk and on iTunes, Spotify, Amazon Music and all digital platforms.

© 2017-2020 Devizine (Darren Worrow)
Please seek permission from the Devizine site and any individual author, artist or photographer before using any content on this website. Unauthorised usage of any images or text is forbidden.
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Cosmic Rays are Hard to Destroy

Introducing Shrewsbury’s five-piece rock band, Cosmic Rays. With a new album proving they’re Hard to Destroy….

As my daughter shoves her phone to my ear with her home-made eighties’ music quiz playlist, memories she will never know of blissfully return. “If I could be like Doc Emmett Brown and whizz you back to my era,” I think aloud, but maybe not such a good idea, she’d never survive; no Wi-Fi. What is apparent with the classic pop from my time she has picked is that it spans genres unconditionally, because she hasn’t lived it to confine her to one viewpoint, to guide through that era, where the categorical conflict for top of the pops changed overnight; what side did you fight for?

Pigeonholing divided the early-to-mid-eighties into alienated youth cultures, unique from one another and only alike for being experimental and innovative. While there may be nothing particularly ground-breaking about Shrewsbury’s five-piece rock band Cosmic Rays, what they do have is a dexterous ability to weave these genres back together in an original and affable way. I have their March released album Hard to Destroy to snoop upon, and I like it; pass my black hair dye and metallic leather high boots.

Initial reaction was thus, partially gothic with nu-metal wailing guitar and archetypical dejected romance as a running theme, and while it’s not my cuppa, it’s produced lo-fi and agreeably subtle. So elusive indeed you don’t pre-empt the changes, though may yearn for it. Post-punk and new romantic are lobbed into the melting pot by the second tune, tickling my personal taste buds better.

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With the sensation of jaggedly Velvet Underground, in parts, its retrospective nods soon confine to aforementioned eighties genres. I’m now left contemplating everything from The Cult to Depeche Mode, and The Dammed to Blancmange. For which they are, just nods, as the all-encompassing sound is something original and exclusive, in so much as the combination of influences fuse so unexpectedly well. Perhaps no more adroitly composed than a central track called Lost Paradise, as while it mirrors synth-pop electronica, it also explodes midway with a wailing guitar solo akin to Slash’s contribution to Jackson’s Beat It.

The Bandcamp blurb explains new guitarist Rob McFall is a major factor to this album being a whole new direction, though while I ponder what the old direction was being I’m new to the band, I have to tip my hat to the guitar sections, but like I say, it’s the placement of them too, unpredictably located. That, I think, makes it more exciting than a band simply replicating a particular sound from a bygone era.

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Just when I’m expecting it to rest there, a tune called Me & Jimmy bursts out upbeat joyful vibes. Unquestionably the most pop-tastic track on the album, it smiles House Martins or even the Fine Young Cannibals at me. Though the last two tunes finish by reminding you this is indie, Seeing Green with a winding goth ease and Walk on Water, where a sombre electronica beat rises again. If you’ve heard such a fusion tried before, you’ll be forgiven for thinking this could be encumbered and muddled, yet I feel you need to listen, for the juxtaposition works on all levels, making Cosmic Rays interesting and defiantly one to watch. By the way, my daughter’s eighties pop quiz, I nail it every time!

Hard to Destroy by Cosmic Rays is available to sample and buy from BandCamp here.

© 2017-2020 Devizine (Darren Worrow)
Please seek permission from the Devizine site and any individual author, artist or photographer before using any content on this website. Unauthorised usage of any images or text is forbidden.
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