10) Mixed Emotions - Tanlines (TOP 20 OF 2012)

Mixed Emotions

Tanlines

True Panther Sounds.

Original SCQ Review.

There are so many ways one could deepen the purpose of Mixed Emotions but it’s unnecessary. Here's a record culturally of-the-moment but in the shadow of no contemporaries, entirely retro-inspired but committed to meticulously. 2012’s whored-out haze has been scrapped, the 80s-aping dismissed for Tanlines’ truly unabashed pop, the sort five-year-olds can understand almost as fully as grown adults. Songs about love, distance, communication and longing utilizing pitch-perfect doses of discord (“Green Grass”), harmonics (“Abby”), the odd dose of afro-rhythm (“Real Life”) and a sense of melody occupying every write-it-on-the-wall chorus. It sounds simple because it is; the direct nature of Mixed Emotions supersedes trend and scene for the heart, and it’s pretty much a bulls-eye.

Mixed Emotions - Tanlines (SUMMER ALBUMS 2012)

Mixed Emotions

Tanlines

True Panther Sounds.

SCQ Rating: 79%

At the present moment, it’s easy to take a band like Tanlines for granted. Upon first listen, they cater to the same blog-fueled craze for 80s reinvention that’s virtually too crowded a scene to pick names out of. From that assessment alone, Tanlines efficiently checklists a myriad of obvious qualifications: lots of dated synths, echoed drum patterns, and morose but catchy choruses. But what stubbornly renders Tanlines essential listening in 2012 can be deduced less from that New-Wave formula but how the Brooklyn–based duo toys with it.

Coarsely put, Jesse Cohen and Eric Emm filter Cut/Copy’s vein of anthemic 80s-for-indie-kids’ cool down to its most visceral gears. By deconstructing much of the gloss and frills, Mixed Emotions boasts strengths that pack a more human punch than your average, overproduced synth-athon. Emm’s vocals, which add an impassioned urgency to each track, sit front and center on defused techno highlights “Not The Same” and “Brothers” while Cohen keeps the record’s percussive flair inimitable by adding a tribal sense of momentum to even-keeled tracks like “Lose Somewhere” and “Real Life”.

Mixed Emotions still has a luxurious vibe that comes naturally to fun electro-pop records, showcased most exquisitely on “Rain Delay”, “Abbey” and the sentimental “Nonesuch”, but it's never used as a means of covering for one-dimensional songwriting. Tanlines is worthy of honing the 80s muse because their hands-on approach never confuses man with machine.