Pop
and punk don't push my proverbial buttons, and I especially
hate the way electronic cheese is crammed into songs sometimes
just for the sake of adding some "unusual" flavour-of-the-month
sounds. Fortunately Performance use the electronic spangles
to their advantage in creating a driving MC505 rhythm in "Dotted
Line" and the floating video game harmonies of "I
Know". Their tack is most definitely and unashamedly
pop, but with neo-classical eclecticism drawn from a well
of punk, new wave and synthpop. In the nasty and flawed
taxonomy of music genres, you could describe their sound
as electroclash.
Singer Joe's affected vocals are utterly fitting for the plastic electronic backdrop
his bandmates provide. Catchy melodies they clearly have and a firm grasp of
what they want to sound like. Performance don't mess about on either track, getting
the listener into the action soon in a way that would make most electronica fans
feel a bit dirty. There is no pretension here.
My feeling about electronic music of this sort is that it will battle against
triviality constantly, but it would be unfair to write off Performance as a joyful
but shallow group this early in their career. Besides, their computer game music
sensibilities seem to fill me with warm, fuzzy feelings that make me reminisce
about the heydays of the 8-bit sound.
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