Timecop1983
Lovers EP - PART I

We on the internet are talking a lot about Stranger Things, a TV series produced by Netflix.
They call them TV series, but they don't actually air on TV. Moreover, more than an entertainment product, it is an episodic aesthetic operation, aimed at the nostalgic heart of those who watched Spielberg's movies back in the day, when they were released in theaters back then; also aimed at the faux-nostalgic heart of nerds who are about my age, if not younger. Oh, anyway, we on the internet also liked Poltergeist, and maybe we watched it in the afternoon on Italy nails before the streaming story came out, if not even on "videocassette".
We're talking about it so much because due to its strong visual, iconic connotation, it is an ideal source of gifs and memes and things, like the title font text generators. In short, the necessary to ascend to instant cult status. On the other hand, we more or less agree that it is lacking in terms of plot, characters, and content; that with such narrative material, deprived of its cool retro-hipster look, the Duffer brothers would have been jeered by the world.

This album, like Stranger Things, is set in 1983. And here too, as in Stranger Things, there are Synths aplenty.
There are Synths that arpeggiate over synth bass lines from which synth riffs with reverb emerge. All with the plastic bass drum underneath and the SDISH snare of the Bud Spencer slap. At steady BPMs, they all seem the same to me.
The atmospheres are strikingly balanced between melancholy, a sincerely predictable emotion - cheesy, as English speakers say - and the straight-in-your-face epicness of Rocky's run at sunset. A relaxing, motivational, and asexual thing. Also ridiculous, derivative*, easy, and vaguely nonsensical; yet, for us who listen to a lot of shoegaze stuff, what some experts call dreamwave - which is then instrumental synth-pop - with its carpets of big keyboards and dream-pop atmospheres, is almost always pleasing. Accompanied by video loops of Sailor Moon and Orange Road, thank you.

I also talked about Stranger Things because I needed it to make this reasoning: derivative elements in music as in cinema can work quite well if they are limited to form. When this album is all about form, an exercise of instrumental style, it's a delight; however, when Lovers comes, and you see that Timecop1983 tried to throw in a real pop song, with the chorus sung high and the super loaded voice full of pathos, then you understand that it's no longer quite the right time: as old as the hills. An ugly piece by Nick Kershaw, or a discard from early Martin Gore. But it's fine, it's only one in seven. Even Stranger Things has that issue: the old is beautiful only on the outside, but such a tacky narrative structure is unsustainable. That's it.