self-titled disc<\/a> captured my imagination in 2004, and its nine-years-later follow-up Player 2<\/i> does much the same. <\/p>\nTo get a sense of what\u2019s being accomplished here, though, first you must understand: in general, I hate \u201980s-era synth music\u2026 but I don\u2019t hate this. There\u2019s just something about the juxtaposition of Pachence\u2019s almost self-mocking use of retro synth tones with his cheeky lyrics and vocals that turns the equation inside out. Turning cheese into gold\u2014that\u2019s some serious musical alchemy.<\/p>\n
The album opens with a tongue-in-cheek revolutionary anthem, \u201cThe Great Casio Uprising,\u201d in which Pachence exhorts his people to \u201cRally round and show this town \/ Our presets will not be ignored.\u201d The edge of wiseass sarcasm in the vocals and lyrics completely upends the classic synth music attitude of detachment, taking that cold feel and fuel-injecting it with snarky sass.<\/p>\n
\u201cFrankly\u201d takes on a favorite target of Pachence\u2019s biting lyrics: \u201cYou\u2019re so designer, but you dress like you\u2019ve been in a war \/ You find your fashions in the window of the dollar store.\u201d The man has a gift for deconstructing poseurs and hipsters, and living in New York obviously offers him plenty of material\u2026 \u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cYour Worst\u201d is a sweet love song that leads into the most jarring note on the album, a cover of the mid-\u201980s hit \u201cYour Love\u201d by The Outfield, employing some of the cheesiest analog synth tones imaginable. Is it meant sarcastically, or as a genuine homage? Only Pachence knows for sure. (Interestingly, the song has been covered in numerous different styles over the years\u2014punk, reggae, trance, hard rock\u2014and more recently in concert by the likes of Bon Iver and the Decembrists. Clearly I\u2019ve missed something here, though I\u2019m not sure what\u2026!)<\/p>\n
\u201cValkyrie 1\u201d is a love song to a space station, sung by the lonely astronaut inhabiting it; imagine HAL from 2001: A Space Odyssey<\/i> as a flirty girl instead of a disembodied villain. (It takes a special kind of imagination to pull this sort of thing off, and Pachence is just the guy to do it.) Taking things a step farther, the kitsch factor reaches its absolute apex with \u201cTokyo,\u201d as Pachence serenades a traveler on the way to Japan with a synthesized \u201cDomo arigato Tokyo\u201d before hitting you with a punky double-time beat and dirty guitars.<\/p>\n
\u201cCool Kids\u201d features one of the album\u2019s better lines: \u201cThe cool kids never win, they just regret what could have been,\u201d while the power-poppy \u201cLaurie Never Lies\u201d deploys beefy guitars to deliver a solid hook. \u201cThe Brokens\u201d is a novelty tune that doesn\u2019t quite click, a sort of \u201980s sitcom parody with a dark edge (though it\u2019s hard to dislike any lyric that uses the word \u201cmoxie\u201d).<\/p>\n
Romantic shut-out-the-world tune \u201cFate Won\u2019t Fail Us Now\u201d opens with a big synth hook that summons the ghosts of the Human League; then \u201cFamous Soon\u201d turns up the snark once more, a frothy blast of delusional egotism (\u201cWho wants to be in a starving indie band?… Keep your integrity \/ Give me celebrity\u201d). Closer \u201cDavid\u201d is an interesting number, marrying Pachence\u2019s nasal, punky delivery with a seemingly sincere ballad that feels like a motivational speech he might have given to himself. It\u2019s an interesting contrast of style and content and shows a different side of Pachence. <\/p>\n
Draw Tippy is one of those unique confections that I would expect most people to have a visceral reaction to on first listen. Regardless of which way you fall, do yourself a favor and give Player 2<\/i> a second and third listen. There\u2019s a lot more to these tunes than just a sound, although the sound is one that stands out from its surroundings like a neon sign in the dark night sky.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":12,"featured_media":31412,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[7166],"rating":[5617],"class_list":["post-43114","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-draw-tippy","rating-rating-b-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/43114","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\/12"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43114"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/43114\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31412"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43114"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=43114"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=43114"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}