Artist: Cut Copy

Album: Zonoscope

Label: Modular

Bands taking their inspiration from 80's synthpop seem to make an easy target for critics. For starters, there's that whole revival thing. It's harder to praise something - it would seem - for being a variation of something, than for being a new thing entirely.

Which might explain the reluctance of some to fully embrace Australian popsters Cut Copy. While some groups vacation in the 80's, this is home. On Zonoscope, its third album, the group again uses the 80's not as a source of homage, but rather as the base colors on its musical palette. Then, in a stroke of brilliant sonic inspiration, it adds back in a host of other textures, making Zonoscope an inspired piece of original music that resists being defined in the terms of the 80's. 

"Where I'm Going" is a perfect example. The drums and handclaps call to mind one era, but the vocals are vintage Beach Boys. Brian Wilson on top of Culture Club. It's a trippy musical concoction, and undeniably one of the most delightful singles yet of 2011.

Lead single "Take Me Over" is new wave pop reborn (the crooning "oooh"s on the bridge should be the first clue) and "Need You Now" progresses with an urgency that belies Dan Whitford's lethargic vocals. He has the quintessential 80's mournful low tenor voice (think OMD's "If You Leave"), but goes more places with it. There are even spots where the production bends Whitford's vocals so he comes across like Amnesiac-era Thom Yorke.

At times, the music does wear a bit dated, but only for measures, not whole chunks of songs. It's more difficult than it seems to make new wave new. The magic trick on Zonoscope is that it's a much trippier album on repeated listens, psychedelic in its own way. One finds it hard to concentrate with all the repetitive swirling synthesizers flying past.

 The wallpaper goes fuzzy. One shouldn't operate heavy machinery while listening to this stuff. It's comparable to Moby or The Chemical Brothers, but only as much as either were more interested in painting with beats and sounds, rather than creating songs. It's free form art.

All this creative energy and experimentation yields a collection that's one step away from expectations and miles away from most of the manufactured corporate pop available at present. The thing separating it is that boundary-defying creativity possessed by all bands whose soul resides in another era from its body.

*This Review First Published Feb. 16, 2011