By the end of an interminable, windy, stress-case February, we could all probably use a little Plushgun in our lives (no, that\u2019s not innuendo for anything). Instead, the full-length debut from Brooklyn-based Plushgun is a lovely, short but sweet offering that manages to stand out in a crush of similarly shimmery indie synth-pop. With liberal swaths of keyboards, Daniel Ingala\u2019s bombastic vocals, and irrepressibly energetic lyrics, this batch of ten songs reminds me most of Stars (though a little less overblown) or The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart\u2019s self-titled debut in its lush atmosphere and spunky tone.<\/p>\n
Opener \u201cDancing In A Minefield\u201d encapsulates the threesome\u2019s devil may care attitude right from the beginning; the track starts out deceptively brooding with slow-burning keyboards and Ingala\u2019s hushed vocals \u2013 until the synths kick in and drive the beat, weaving past exuberant lines like \u201cAnd we were dropping bombs with our sneakers on \/ And we were dancing in a minefield with a bottle of whisky \/ \u2018Cause you can’t tell us what to do.\u201d<\/p>\n
The songs here are unquestionably catchy, but still boast substance beneath the airy swirls of keyboards and big drum fills. Even a potentially cheesy kiss-off to high school, which bears the refrain \u201cThis is how we roll \/ We\u2019re the rebels of senior year,\u201d is just so earnestly delivered and so jammed full of slickly pretty instrumentation that its impossible to resist, and the rapid-fire tempo changes – all pulled off effortlessly \u2013 show a band squarely in command of their craft.<\/p>\n
Pins & Panzers <\/i>moves along breathlessly throughout its forty-minute runtime, whether it\u2019s the bittersweet, nervous energy of lead single \u201cJust Impolite,\u201d Ingala\u2019s sweetly hushed vocals paired with raucous, call-to-arms synths on \u201cA Crush To Pass The Time,\u201d or the brooding, stuttering dance beat of \u201cThe Dark In You.\u201d And fittingly, they follow \u201cThe Dark In You\u201d\u2019s midnight mood with the endearingly lighthearted \u201cLet Me Kiss You Now (And I\u2019ll Fade Away)\u201d, which grooves along on a handclap-accented ukulele beat before adding in piles of bouncy synths. <\/p>\n
It\u2019s one of Plushgun\u2019s strengths that Pins & Panzers <\/i>never once really loses its footing; instead, the spirit of sheer bombast is maintained throughout, and even within each individual cut there are enough tempo mix-ups to keep everything consistently fresh. These are the types of songs that would soundtrack the best type of romantic comedy \u2013 nothing overtly cheesy, just a heartfelt, undeniable catchiness that you can\u2019t help but adore; and plus, there\u2019s nothing like swirling dance beats to cure those February blues.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":48,"featured_media":29813,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[8372],"rating":[5617],"class_list":["post-41428","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-plushgun","rating-rating-b-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/41428","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/48"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=41428"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/41428\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/29813"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41428"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=41428"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=41428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}