New Romanticism is new again. Within the last month we’ve seen Cut Copy and M83 fall back in love with the melodrama, naivety and exuberance of those heady days of pop. We can now count Windsor for the Derby as a willing participant in the push to elevate synthesizers, metronomic percussion and jangly guitars to flavour of the month status.
By their own admission, WFTD are also enamoured with the Factory Records back-catalogue and the iconic label provides a worthy inspiration for an album whose sound is distinctive yet difficult to pin down at the same time. The triumphant pop triumvirate of ‘Maladies’, ‘Fallen Off The Earth’ and ‘Hold On’ is the jewel in How We Lost’s crown and provides plenty of options for radio singles. The way in which ‘Maladies’ ramps up after a chug-along opening is exhilarating: some minor key riffing bursts into a wall of sound chorus that simply climbs and climbs.
‘Fallen Off The Earth’ is an example of how reverb can be used in the production of a song to deliver an engulfing experience for the listener. Where the likes of Beach House (who practice a more mellow brand of dream pop) overuse the staple of shoegaze to the point of suffocation and tedium, WFTD’s more direct and aggressive approach to song writing relegates the reverb to an atmospheric trimming as opposed to sounding like an instrument all of its own. The final cog in the wheel, ‘Hold On’, marries some Beach Boys harmonies to synth undercurrents and is reminiscent of The Radio Dept.’s insistent rhythms or a dirtier American Analog Set.
How We Lost is not a one-trick pony. More often than not, a willingness to display a grasp of a range of styles and blend them together is the signifier of a great album. But at other times it’s the singularity of the artist’s vision and their ability to stick to what they do best that makes an album work. In this case, Windsor for the Derby have attempted the former but it has turned out to be their Achilles’ heel. The muted soundscape of ‘Robin Robinette’ is unnecessary, but at least it serves to introduce the album’s centrepiece in ‘Fallen Off The Earth’. The cynic in me might suggest that such an instrumental ‘song’ lengthens the album as opposed to value adding any real element to the narrative. The hypnotic textures of opener, ‘Let Go’ are memorable and the interplay between the rhythm section’s tom-toms, blunt kick drum and rubbery bass provide some nice textures but they seem to lead nowhere, only serving to make the transition to the rock of ‘Maladies’ slightly jarring.
Unlike a good literary or cinematic experience, How We Lost climaxes halfway through its 10 tracks, allowing the latter half to meander without any real purpose. If it were not for the percussion-less, acoustic lament of ‘Forgotten’ (which reminds of Australia’s excellent Underground Lovers) the last five tracks could have forced a rename of the album to ‘how we lost it’. In the context of the album’s focussed opening, ‘What We Want’ is messy, ‘Good Things’ is tired melancholic shoegaze and ‘Spirit Fade’ is just plain lazy song writing – a sort of generic dénouement that posits a slow wind down is the only way to conclude an album.
How We Lost clearly outlines how Windsor for the Derby are to achieve world domination: play simple, catchy-as-hell pop songs; ramp up the drama and don’t worry about being clever. The new wave/new romantic revival needs another willing participant to extend it’s run… and quickly, before the young kids starting bands begin to dig their mums’ Kenny Loggins and Bonnie Tyler records.
_1200952009.jpg)
_1179089031.jpg)
_1186948569.jpg)
_1171805670.jpg)
