Electronic music seems to be headed toward the mainstream limelight. Moby is the poster-boy for electronic music, and new bands seem to be popping up all over the place. Figurine is a new band whose music resembles The Postal Service, Stereolab and Air, but all in loose terms. The style resembles The Postal Service; the sound resembles Stereolab; the mood resembles Air.
The most immediate thing that comes to mind while listening to The Heartfelt is video games — 80s video games. Unlike The Postal Service and Stereolab, the electronic beats and sounds are more important than any of the words. There are a few tracks sprinkled throughout the album with just sound meant to preserve the mood, and remind the audience that they’re listening to electronic music. On the tracks that have words, the vocals are less dominant than the sounds. “Heartfelt” is such a song, which borders on serenity and transcendence. “Let’s Make A Love Song” uses the vocals merely to compliment the music. The lyrics could easily be removed and still retain the same narrative from either the song or the album. “Our Game (Is Over)” is the most reflexive song in the album. With the obvious allusions to video games, Figurine makes a song that references the video games, and kills the references. The tracks following “Our Game (Is Over)” don’t nearly allude to video games as much as the earlier ones and try to prove Figurine’s versatility. It succeeds, and there might be another band fighting with The Postal Service for after-hours dominance on the disco nights.
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Track list:
- International Space Station II
- IMpossible
- Pswd:Stdum
- Rewind
- Way Too Good
- Stranger
- Time (His Mix)
- Instrumental
- Pswd:Natur
- Our Game (Is Over)
- So Futuristic
- Pswd:Pttrn
- Heartfelt
- Let’s Make Our Love Song
NOTE: Article originally posted on Blogcritics.