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Loud hailer calls for real music.
Wailing for a revival for real songs.
So much hot air, so much energy, so little art and no appreciation for the thrills of artifice and pretence.
Thankfully there are people who understand that retro and nostalgia doesn’t have to mean moribund rehashing and grave digging.
Nostalgia Deathstar have one foot in the past, perhaps just a toe, but they stand in the present and have their eye on the future. What a balancing act. One wobble, one gentle breeze, could tip them into pastiche or cut-copy-paste.
They have their time travelling toe dipping in the eighties, Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark, New Order, Human League and Depeche Mode are all here…but they are whispers, ghosts of the past and the songs here are not just covers or ironic, postmodernist, jokes. This is not pastiche. There are other influences at work here, most obviously David Bowie (who’s “Hallo Spaceboy” is covered) and the dark hearts of Bauhaus (both band and movement) and the likes of Sisters of Mercy. This is grand, gothic, retro-futurist, electro-pop.
The album and its sister release are reminders that independent music is alive and well. When people yelp about wanting an indie revival what they really mean is they want the radio stations to play songs that sound exactly like the songs they already own so that they can say how much they love new music. Something like Nostalgia Deathstar offers the sort of alternative to the mainstream that people claim they want but they are roundly, loudly, ignored by some of the very “indie influencers” who could help bring them to the attention of a wider audience.
Here you will find songs that are a dizzying rush of Numan boogie, Bowie experimentation and electro-pop of the highest standard. Quite why that hasn’t set your pulse racing is a question for a medical professional to answer.
For more information on Nostaglia Deathstar visit their Bandcamp here
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