Digitalism
Idealism

My friend Mario doesn't listen to rock. Nor metal for that matter. Not even the electronic music I like. And neither the 80s dance, or British-pop or who knows... grunge? None of this. My friend Mario is the typical over-thirty "tamarro" who only blasts unz-unz in the car, and downloads nights of the most famous DJs from Ibizia. The most "cultured" music he listens to is some mainstream poser "emo-electro whatever," known only by him and 3 others in all of Italy. My friend Mario and I are truly at opposite ends when it comes to music. The only thing he can manage to listen to in my car are Depeche Mode, Nine Inch Nails, and Bluvertigo... but with some effort. I have to be halfway drunk in his car to even stay there.

Well, with that said, one evening two months ago, we were four people in my friend Mario's car. The usual four as always, and, oddly enough, drunk. I was driving because my friend Mario was already on the shores of 2.5 while (they "say," due to an unlikely portable breathalyzer gifted by a pseudo-go-go dancer at a disco-night to my friend Luca) I was still around 0.3 ("they say, they claim"... they, in my opinion, swindled me!) and since the car was under his name, at least that would be safe in case of a stop. I mean, what won't you do for a friend, right? Big summer night with friends’ wives and kids at the beach, ...the most dangerous kind!   

My friend Mario has a stereo that even Mr. Sulu on Star Trek couldn't dream of! It has a thousand little lights of thousands of colors, and reads mp3s displaying on the screen the artist and track title. For someone like me who still has valve speakers and listens to CDs, it's like being in front of the light at the end of 2001: A Space Odyssey. Among the many flashy things I've heard in Mario's car though, ... damn... one I really liked a lot! And it wasn't exactly my friend's usual Ibiza genre. It was mooooore refined, and it seemed to me (though in my mediocre capacity to judge electronics) that I had heard some really good guys.

Moral of the story... I go home and search for a bunch of stuff by the guys I had read on Mr. Sulu's... Mario's display, and ... damn... tons of killer songs! So, a few days later I go to my authorized CD dealer, and I even spend the money to buy their CD and he tells me: "look, they're very famous". Bah... I think, maybe because he knows he can't sell me anything else metal for over 20 years, now he sees a new opening and as a seasoned seller, he dives right in. Can you believe that I almost didn't listen to anything else in my car for a week? And even when sober! Going to work I seemed like a puppet nodding along unz-unz-unz.

Well, I checked, and I didn't find anything about my friend Mario's friends on DeBaser, so I take the liberty to point out: band: Digitalism; if you like DAFT PUNK, JUSTICE, but also Trentemoller or Royksopp, they won't disappoint you. It's pure electronic, but on rock rhythms, their music sounds almost like an electronic garage band and (even though there's a bit too much homage to Daft Punk and Chemical Brothers), they are original. It's a German duo from Hamburg, technically valid. I can't tell you who alternates on vocals, but it changes practically with every track. Okay, I won't make the usual rant of reviewing each piece because every time I do, you then give me a hard time about it, right? Right? But I'll point out that: 1 is very disco-dance (maybe a bit too much) and gets you dancing; 2 is very "I'm German and grew up on bread, kraut, and Kraftwerk", so repetitive and long but with amazing sounds; 3 is almost an electronic-pop piece; 4 "IDEALISTIC" for me is the best on the album! A total piece, with guitars underneath and synth a bit in the Scandinavian minimalist style. Stunning! It's officially entered my best of 2008. You can skip 5 and 6; 7 "POGO" they say is the best on the record. Syncopated beat underneath, lovely melody, chill but for an upbeat, fun ride. 8 and 9 are nothing special, but always with very well-crafted sounds, very listenable. 10 is cute, but a bit too much like "it's time to close the club"; 11-12-13 are cosmic fluff, filler asked by the producer, leftovers from rehearsal room! Young errors. 14 "JUPITER ROOM" if you listen to it sober... "no way"! But if you're in the mood it's got a beautiful reason for being. It's this one I listened to in Mario's car, volume cranked up, waving arms. A "shoe-burning" track. It ends with "ECHOES", short but very beautiful.

In short, it's a CD with 3 little gems within a lot of nice tracks and only 3 clunkers. In my opinion, these guys have a future if it's true as they write that it's their debut album.