It’s not that there isn’t a story, there is:
“The year was 1986”, begins the gravelly, all-American narrator on ‘Prelude’, “Here was a teenager like any other, dreaming of his heroes and in love with a girl. But on a thunderous night along a ragged coast, a mysterious red car came down, its power lighting his eyes blood red…all was lost in a hellfire of twisted metal…” A car hits our hero, man and car become one, and he is doomed to roam the streets, invisible to everyone but her.
Great, all extravagantly and suitably 80s, but I want to know what happens next, and we aren’t even granted an engaging narrative, just loads of massive, super-dramatic synths with the odd vocal, usually inhabiting the album’s peaks. The rest is fun, but little more than a veneer featuring one near identical track after another – think Neon Neon without Gruff Rhys’ wry lyricism.
Perhaps I’m being a little harsh. Even if it is just a veneer it’s still glowing with neon lights, and every bit as exciting as Daft Punk’s work on Tron Legacy – undoubtedly this is a major influence. ‘Blizzard’ would be the perfect accompaniment to a tooling up, Evil Dead 2-esque, I’m going to get medieval on their asses, revenge scene, and ‘ProtoVision’ feels like flying through space in an invisible ship, naked. We’re even treated to vocals on ‘Odd Look’, though here they feel oddly redundant, and by track 5, ‘Rampage’, the album starts to feel like its running out of ideas…this is a copy of a copy of a copy. What’s happening in the rampage? Are torsos and limbs being splattered across the pavement by a bloodthirsty car? I want to know more, but alas, frustration.
Hiphop track 6, ‘Suburbia’ reignites the whole enterprise. “I come alive in my fast fast car”, and the album is reanimated…only to be murdered again with ‘Testarossa Autodrive’, which is very much Kavinsky on autopilot. ‘Nightcall’ still sounds absolutely amazing, but again, from here it feels like the album is trying to capture the earlier tracks’ immediacy. Instead, they come out as carbon copies, and are, hence, less interesting. ‘Firstblood’ is pretty cool, but by the end, as the opening narrator hoves back into view, the album feels like one of those films that’s trying to open itself up into being a franchise, where you’re left wondering what more could a sequel possibly offer? At this moment it remains “unclear”.
So what does this leave you with? An album that is fun, sometimes exceptionally so, but one that also lacks, and sorely needs, plot development – not a criticism you get to level at many albums. Set to some sort of ultra-violent racing game, like Road Rash, or a film like Tron, this music would really fly. On its own the wings are most definitely clipped. Is this yet another example of ephemeral Youtube fame? Quite possibly, but I hope not. What we have here is misdirected talent, but talent nonetheless.
Release Date 25/02/2013 (Mercury Records Ltd)