Information Society
Synthesizer

It's spelled Information Society, and it's read as liveliness, class, dynamism, and stylistic research, right from the start. The incurable nostalgics of the '80s will fondly recall their first and only hit "Something On Your Mind," and even back then, it was quite evident that for Kurt Harland and company, synth pop was just a starting point to develop a new and more energetic formula of contamination between pop and electronics. However, the ambitions of the Minneapolis collective clash with an evident overabundance of ideas not supported by a selective capacity and sufficient clarity to reach the goal: the subsequent albums, "Hack" and "Peace & Love Inc.," can be considered half-flops, albums without head or tail, where excellent insights are suffocated by not always happy experiments and a truly excessive prolixity; as if that wasn't enough, there was also the explosion of the grunge phenomenon, perhaps the most explosive and perfectly orchestrated marketing operation in musical history, that smothered any possibility of adequate promotion, relegating Information Society to the undeserved rank of an '80s meteor. A few years go by, and Kurt Harland, who in the meantime reinvented himself as a video game programmer, revives the name of the old band for a majestic and fascinating industrial/gothic/futurepop album called "Don't Be Afraid", which I have already covered in the past. Then, the name Information Society goes back into hibernation for an exact decade, until this "Synthesizer" dated 2007. Perhaps, if after the debut of 1988 there had been an album like this, things would have been very different for InSoc.

It's easy to speak with hindsight, but "Synthesizer" would have been the perfect album, perhaps to cement their commercial success and certainly to strengthen the image of a creative and innovative group. Yes, because, unlike "Don't Be Afraid," which, aside from the name on the cover, has very little to do with previous experiences, this album presents itself as a mature and reasoned evolution of what the first Information Society tried to propose, also thanks to the reunion with two other original members, Paul Robb and James Cassidy. Light-years away from the vile banality of the revival, "Synthesizer" is the worthy successor to the tradition of a band that was already ahead of its time; a synth-pop freed from unnecessary trappings and forcefully dragged into the new millennium with very original and creative electronic arrangements, enough to disorient the most habitual radio listeners, without giving up anything in terms of catchiness. The 100% synth sound, a considerable dance charge, and excellent levels of inspiration translate into the definitive transposition of that "pure energy" which has always been InSoc's mission: a streak of catchy choruses and robotic rhythms, fresh and original enough to draw attention.

"Back In The Day" and "Run Away" would have been two excellent singles in the '80s, but even now they hold their own with great class, resulting pleasantly vintage but not old, not to mention "Can't Get Enough", which is essentially "I Was Made For Lovin' You" by Kiss in disguise, a clever, subtle and well-conceived restyling, in the likeness and image of the album. The synth-pop matrix is a great starting point, and techno, electro-funk, and light-industrial influences complete the work, giving rise to a varied but cohesive musical discourse, full of brilliant episodes like the unpredictable "Baby Just Wants", which experiments with changes of tempo and mood, partially surpassing the classic pop-song structure, the sexy charisma of "This Way Tonight", the synth perfection of a retrospective "Burning Bridges", the somewhat whacky charm of the driving rhythms of "Somnambulistic", enticing electropop of great class, and, the cherry on top, the whimsical, robotic, and nonsensical nursery rhyme of "I Love It When...", an excellent alternative-dance performance from which the remarkable Starfucker surely drew inspiration.

Overall, a truly outstanding performance, which sounds much more fluid and natural than the Information Society of the late '80s and early '90s, also because these more strictly electronic sounds better fit Kurt Harland's voice, which is definitely not exceptional, resulting completely integrated into the context and suitable for the purpose, and not a limitation as in the beginnings. And so, while some upstart struggles to emulate clumsily the "glories" of an out-of-time new romantic for dummies without the slightest personality and good taste, InSoc reemerge out of nowhere and, in the most complete underground and media invisibility, they nonchalantly finish what they had started, thus demonstrating the unbridgeable difference between what is original and what is fake; "Synthesizer" is clever, it's fun, it's an album conceived to perfection that manages to surprise and never bore, it's a pop gem that has no abstruse pretensions other than the essential one of being a personal and quality product.