#397 Neon Indian - Era Extrana

Brit randomly played this in the car on the way back from cut / copy. Didn't even know they had a new one out!

Something was lost in the transition though. The first album had this humble, clumsy, lo-fi charm to it, the songs sounding strangely ancient despite their obvious 80's-via-aughts influences. Here things are much more polished, and even in places where they aren't they feel intentionally roughed up, seemingly wanting to press certain buttons, sound like m83/cut copy/starfucker, all of who do this kind of thing better.

There's also something weirdly disconnected about some of the electronic flourishes and squiggles, which often scurry off over and around the track, without really being connected to it rhymically or melodically or structurally, sounding outside the rest of the song somehow. This leads to a more quirky sound, but it feels a little tacked on, like someone went and pinned some extra flair onto an otherwise lumbering song.

Its a perfectly good album, and maybe it suffered from being heard in the middle of hanging out with 80's revival-obsessed Brit, and seeing cut / copy, the drums, and starfucker live over the span of 3 weeks. Maybe I was just overloaded on this kind of sound, but for whatever reason it really didn't move me 2.5/5

You might like this if: you like vaguely noisy, fairly pretty, slightly dancy 80's revival, with a squiggly edge, and haven't already overdosed on the sound.