What
is up with all this flash back type stuff?
The
Strokes went 60's rock, then there is this mainstream surge
in "punk" that is a throw back to the 80's, and every once
in awhile a band comes along and figures hey lets even out
everything with a little new-wave/retro. Deadsy and Orgy did
it successfully, so why cant Hot Hot Heat? Well they can.
Plus their visit to previous decades isn't nearly as obnoxious
as Orgy's overproduced cover of Blue Monday and subsequent
singles. On
Makeup the Breakdown Hot Hot Heat does like Deadsy. No not
making funeral synth-pop but a creating a successful assimilation
of old school into the present millennium.
Hot
Hot Heat's singer Steve Bays has a pretty smooth strange voice
that sorta is like Robert Smith from the Cure but not as depressed.
All the songs have an upbeat 80's pop structure with the classic
keyboard support and have enough variety to not make the album
seem like a 60-minute track. The only problem is that the
over happy sentiment gets a little old by the last track,
but not awful to the point of ejecting the disk.
Its
strength is its refreshing divergence from the current state
of pop music.
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