After being touring members of The Pains Of Being Pure At Heart and forming the shoegaze outfit The Depreciation Guild, twin brothers guitarist\/vocalist Christoph and drummer\/vocalist Anton Hochheim have embarked on a new musical journey with their project Ablebody, which now consists of only the two of them. As Ablebody, this Los Angeles-based duo released four EPs in January 2013 but didn\u2019t have any substantial output since then. Adult Contemporaries<\/i> is not only Ablebody\u2019s first full-length album, but one can also say that it is the duo\u2019s first properly produced work considering the rather casually produced nature of their early EPs.<\/p>\n
As suggested by the album title and the cover (which appears as if the brothers are posing for a Style Council album cover), this release embraces the musical and visual aesthetics of \u201880s sophisti-pop genre with its jazz-tinged synth-driven music that balances wistfulness and cheeriness in smooth pop tunes. Adult Contemporaries<\/i> does not break any new ground. However, in comparison with the many \u201880s pop influenced albums that are being put out there by similarly young bands, this album is certainly one of the better ones of the lot.<\/p>\n
Ablebody describe themselves as \u201cstudents of the past but far from retro fetishists.\u201d For the most part, this statement holds true, but on a few instances maybe not so. For example, the bubbly \u201cSay What You Will\u201d sounds like a cheesy nostalgia trip to the \u201880s with nothing else to offer. Although not a great one, it is not a bad song either; in fact, it is not even bad enough to be worth remembering.<\/p>\n
On the other hand, the band punches you in the face with total awesomeness with their kickass interpretation of The Servants song \u201cThe Sun, A Small Star.\u201d This song finds them taking a trip to the \u201880s again, but this time it\u2019s with substance, turning a cuddly jangle pop song into an atmospheric shoegaze track with the fervor of Kitchens Of Distinction from their heyday. Speaking of cuddly jangle pop songs, \u201cMarianne\u201d is a beautifully haunting one, where the dreaminess from the Hochheim boys\u2019 shoegazing past perfectly compliments the song\u2019s tender folksiness.<\/p>\n
\u201cOne Dime A Day\u201d is another track that is only good for bringing retro flashbacks \u2013 baggy suits and all, sounding like a dated, totally forgotten run-of-the-mill sophisti-pop song. On the other hand, \u201cSend Me A Letter\u201d (featuring the soulful voice of Canadian balladeer Sean Nicholas Savage) is a sophisti-pop cut that sounds more modern and authentic with its melancholic but warm sound that is such a prominent characteristic of Ablebody\u2019s music.<\/p>\n
The Hochheim twins\u2019 sentimentality for the past sounds the coolest on the album opener \u201cBackseat Heart\u201d and closer \u201cWayside Glow.\u201d \u201cBackseat Heart\u201d feels very stylish and is super catchy with its smooth vocals and dancey New Wave groove created by the pairing of guitar strokes with drums. \u201cWayside Glow\u201d is a slow and forlorn closing number, consisting of just vocals and synths. Combined together, they form a soulfully vulnerable track that although sounds quintessentially \u201cnew romantic,\u201d still has a contemporary feel.<\/p>\n
The best moments on Adult Contemporaries<\/i> are the fast-paced guitar-based dream pop cuts \u201cAfter Hours\u201d and \u201cGaucho.\u201d \u201cAfter Hours\u201d is haunting and has an eerie madness to it, and its chorus lyrics \u201cI can\u2019t tell what you represent\u201d are delivered with a frenzied catharsis. \u201cGaucho,\u201d the album\u2019s fastest number, is like The Kinks and The Smiths combined into one powerful package. The jangly guitars are played with fierce passion and it features a fiery solo that is so antithetical to the mellow suaveness of most of the album.<\/p>\n
The brothers Hochheim are certainly no retro fetishists. Their nostalgia trips do more service to the songs than the other way round. Even though Adult Contemporaries<\/i> likes to cling sentimentally onto its \u201880s-accented garb, it still looks classy and fresh.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":40,"featured_media":33208,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"artist":[10025],"rating":[5617],"class_list":["post-45017","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-ablebody","rating-rating-b-plus"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/45017","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\/40"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=45017"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/45017\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33208"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45017"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=45017"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=45017"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}