War Tapes

The Continental Divide

(Fontana)

Record Review by Marcel Feldmar

This band hits hard and heavy from the first second. If this was a record, the needle would drop like a bomb, and the record player would explode under the rush of sonic thickness. The vocals kick in and fall somewhere between Editors and White Lies, but the machine gun drums and brit popped bass lines push everything through that wall of mood like a batcaver on steroids.

A few strains of ethereal vocals, courtesy of Becca Popkin, float through the dark guitar crush, giving the menace of the song a slight heavenly balance. We’re either talking about demons who are kind of good, or angels who might be a little bit bad.

The second song still holds that White Lies feeling, a bit more Dark Bono as opposed to Julian Cope, with guitar hits that fall out of some misplaced Longwave song. The melodics and mood hit like the chorus of a Cure song, probably from somewhere around the Disintegration era.

And we move on from there, pushing through the songs with a dark and steady but still arena sized beat. Filling the air and poised somewhere between goth and glam, between darkness and light. This is emotional, but not quite emo. There’s dreaminess in some of the songs, but the dreams are all a little closer to being of a nightmare stature. Nouveu Goth or Post-Brit-Goth-Pop? I’m not sure where the genres are falling these days, but for all the post-punk posturing and references to days of gloom all gone by, War Tapes seem to still be moving forwards in their stylistic take on this realm of music.

Not as poetic as Veil Veil Vanish, not as psychedelic as Xu Xu Fang, not as Darkwave Dancey as White Lies, and not as derivative as She Wants Revenge, War Tapes can fit alongside any of those bands and feel right at home. It seems like looking back to a point earlier than 1989 is not happening with this band, but I think with the ways the songs move across the album, that’s a good thing. I have a feeling that too much musical history and influential moments could actually hinder the dynamics that fly out here. There are, I think, exactly two moments in between the slow Interpol strums and the harder Placebo beats that hit me with a huge post-1990 smile, when all of the instruments hit and mix like something that you should find in the midst of the perfect Dark Star song. And if I’m being to musically obscure for you right now, I apologize. I get sidetracked by some musical memories.

So you can either go and do some research (*hint: House of Love – Terry Bickers – Levitation – Dark Star) or you can just ignore my last few words and get yourself listening to War Tapes.