After releasing a great EP earlier this year (read my review here) there now is a full-length album, with the title “The HAHA sound”. This is Broadcasts second full-length, and once again it took them 3 years to produce it. Last time it resulted in a poppy album, that lacked quite a bit of the atmosphere that was present in their excellent collection of singles, “Work and non Work”.
The record starts out with a lovely little pop song, ‘Color me in’. The vocals by Trish Keenan are simple, and almost naive. Her voice mixes beautifully with the noisy analogue synthesizer layers. The sound seems to have it’s roots firmly in the 60’s psychedelics, naive voices singing almost childlike melodies. This is best illustrated in the wonderful song “Little bell”. If Syd Barret had written this one I wouldn’t be surprised at all. Beside being pop songs, all tracks also have a firm experimental layer. Squeeking synth noises, distorted guitars and ambient layers are present all the time.
Broadcast seems to be back to it’s roots, producing amazing experimental pop songs, using influences from 60’s psychedelic and experimental music. The result is a beautiful record, exciting, original music that seems to teach bands like Stereolab, Ladytron and maybe even ADD (N) TO X a lesson in retro style music.
This record will keep you entertained for quite some time. So who cares it took them three years to complete, if the end result is this good, I coudn’t care less.
