An alluringly heartfelt synth-pop sound compels all through Fabulously Melancholy, the newly launched album from Plastic Hacks. A Philadelphia-based undertaking comprising equivalent twins Bryan and Brandon Peach, Plastic Hacks steadiness approachably melodic productions with private introspection — spanning thematically from musings on suffocating, identity-stripped careers inside “Absurd Ritual” to the sense of blurred identification in “Meet You in Chelsea.” Conjuring an aesthetic that reminds fondly of Pet Store Boys and LCD Soundsystem at factors, the discharge excels in its simultaneous grappling of nostalgic comforts and modern-day reckonings.
Opening the album, “Absurd Ritual” builds with climactic attract — transferring from distorted, sporadic pulses right into a extra radiant synth entrancement. The preliminary lyrical views convey a extra carefree adolescence — “purple and blue animals dance in a circle round you,” — amidst a free-spirited ethos. A hovering vocal disposition enamors thereafter, right into a wordless elongation that melds with atmospheric synths for a replay-inducing vigor. Lush guitar injections at mid-point carry forth that New Order inspiration, splendidly. The culminating lyrics of “once you gave up the hunt to stack invisible towers,” invokes relatable themes of development from childhood whimsy to drowning within the workflow of maturity; the opening monitor is an apt place to begin in its thematic depictions of doom and gloom following initially bluer skies.
The following “Gradual Glow” stirs in its dreamy vocal tones and reflective synth glistening. Lyrical views of efforts inside perseverance — “I’m attempting…” — transfer seamlessly inside buzzing synth momentum, adorned by extra effervescently serene tonal enhances. “Can’t discover myself generally, looks like dying,” the vocals admit additional, poetically capturing feelings of overwhelming expectations and ensuing grief, in a fast-moving world with a rising tendency for extra bite-sized types of communication. “When I attempt to write one other drained metaphor, evaluate the way in which I feeling now to how I felt earlier than,” the vocals invoke a fourth wall of kinds, referencing the songwriting course of and feelings’ influence with clever precision.
Sounding like a cross of Pet Store Boys and LCD Soundsystem in its trendy, talk-singing attraction, “Meet You in Chelsea” exudes a “Hire”-esque prowess in its shifting from spoken-word emanations to a melodic hook inside an emotively city setting. “She’ll meet you in Chelsea, sometime quickly,” a wistful vocal presence exudes inside twinkling, magnetic synths — conveying hope and craving inside a world caught up in superficiality and standing. An array of different highlights show memorable by means of — together with the punchy time-rewinding infectiousness of “Get It Collectively” and the bass-y Erasure-like “Eight Straight Days of Recent Hell.” A completely profitable album from Plastic Hacks, Fabulously Melancholy finally resonates as a cathartic synth-pop odyssey — one which dances by means of disillusionment with anthemic grace, whereas by no means shedding sight of the aching humanity at its core.