We Have Band stand squarely between the romantic, "dance" orientated pop of 80's stars like Flock of Seagulls, Frankie Goes To Hollywood, OMD... and the new millenial, more abrasive and heavy, rave orientated, electro-house.
Debut album WHB begins with "Piano", as genuine a homage to Tears for Fears as you're ever likely to hear.
"Buffet", by contrast is listful, with a gorgeously gentle, melodic pulsing. In turn "Divisive" has a squelchy bass and synth with tribal drumming a la Talking Heads.
As we might arguably deduce from history, successive generations should learn from the mistakes past, and advance further than their forebears in both skill and knowledge. Whether that's true or not, it seems that after a respectful, grateful nod to the 80's generation, the current synth pop wave have evolved to make better use of the synth and the studio. Where the previous generation explored all edges of the new electronic technologies and modes of music... the new generation has assimilated the pertinent lessons to make tracks that not only sound generally better engineered, but are also both pop-pier and dance-ier... viz. MGMT, Crystal Castles, Hot Chip... there's more balance to the music, and fewer embarassing mistakes. Unavoidably there's also generally less revolutionary spirit and radical invention (Grace Jones, anyone?) .
For example, the track "Oh!" takes a straightforward post-punk rock beat and bassline, and a Byrne-esque half spoken chorus, and pulls it through the decades by raving up the percussion and bringing in a filtered vocoder on the verses - taking the track into the territory of 21st century, post-French-disco-wave style house.
Further in "Honeytrap" is Paradise Garage style dirty disco with a fat, p-funk bassline but with Britpop era indie boy vocals... before a plot twist where Dede comes in with vocals that sound exactly like Kate Pierson from the B-52's.
"Centrefolds & Empty Screens" conveys the epic indie of, say, the Doves, but with a cheekily funky cowbell. "You Came Out" is sassy, funky.. bass propelled (and more B-52's-ish-ness), while "Hero Knows" is slowed down, with a looping set of his and hers vocals, a loping bass, and hard edged fuzz guitar detailing, giving it echoes of Beck-ish eclecticism - it's a track longing for a barn-dance step routine.
My favourite is the cheesy, casio-tone, pogo-pop of "Hear it in the Cans" - multiple vocal, a great bassline.. simple, sugary, pop heaven.
In all WHB is accessible, varied and stacked with fun. A great party album for your student dorm, kids of any age will love it.
http://vimeo.com/8215535
http://www.myspace.com/wehaveband
