so slow to find the good stuff but I found this

Kill For Love by Chromatics

Label: Italians Do It Better

Release: March 26, 2012



I’m going to preface this by admitting that I know next to nothing about Chromatic’s previous oeuvre except for a couple songs, like the excellent “Hands In The Dark,” so I’m no expert on the Portland band’s progression to get to where they’ve gotten on their latest album, Kill For Love. What I do know is that this album is fucking awesome, which is a word that gets overused to death but the first gut feeling that comes to mind when I think of this collection of sounds really is awe (and indigestion from the Spicy McChicken I just ate). If “ominously joyous” is an oxymoron then fuck you because that’s the current running through Kill For Love like said McChicken through me. Relentless beats that, refreshingly, aren’t in-your-face electronica, lush and spooktacular keyboard arrangements, gritty guitar sparks, pop-adelically obscured vocals of both the feminine and masculine persuasion. Stuff for going out and looking at people, before bed quiet time, during bed loud time, hangover cures in a dark cave. Anti-anthems like the title track and “Back from the Grave” sound like clever Cure/Human League/New Order/Crystal Castles/David Byrne-on-Percocet mash-up records. Which means: wow. Fuzzy instrumentals like “Broken Mirrors” and “There’s a Light Out on the Horizon” are testaments to better and darker adventures than you’ve ever had with people you wish you could meet. The album’s best song, “These Streets Will Never Look the Same,” (perfect for driving to a keg party in a sparsely populated forest region) represents one of the few acceptable uses of Auto-Tune in recorded history. And I know I mention David Bowie in every post but there are more than a few hints of The White Duke lurking like a coked-out specter on the fringe of the tracks, especially the sanguineous “A Matter of Time,” which doesn’t really sound like David Bowie at all. I guess all I’m trying to say is do yourself a favor and check Chromatics out. And if you see me nodding at you on the Subway, it’s not because I’m acknowledging your presence as a distinct, hardworking and respectable member of society, it’s because I’m jamming out to “Lady” and trying desperately to free myself from the confines of the banal, joyless world you call home. Also, there’s a pretty sweet Neil Young cover.