by: Zero Sharp
Now that 80s synth-pop has been allowed to age and die, however ungracefully, people have started to believe that it is acceptable to try to reanimate pieces of it to create seemingly new life. More unfortunate is the fact that most people with a laptop and sound card seem to have no clue when to stop turning up graves and stop production on a song of reanimated pieces. The Alpinestars, however, show in their album, BASIC, that they can do it well and keep it sounding new. Like the computer language BASIC suggests, things are kept clean and simple resulting in a refreshingly clean, fun album. For those who look at the review and could swear that they've heard of this album before, you probably have. This release is just the first time that the album has made the jump across the pond from England. Originally released in 2000, this album is just now seeing the light of day here becuase their next album is to be released soon here. Nothing especially pioneering is happening in most of the tracks of BASIC, and the musical roots of the Alpinestars can be easily tracked back to groups like Kraftwerk, Air, and Depeche Mode, but even with the similarity, they made music that's just plain good. Not to mention that there's something addictive about a lot of this album, like Jump Jet, Cresta La Wave, and Complete Control. Several tracks feature vocoded vocal lines, and a few have gituars along with the 80s synth sounds, but all are used well and the results aren't cheesy, either. As I mentioned above, the minimality of the sounds and instruments and the simplicity of the melody lines greatly add to the catchy clean feeling the whole album has. Go ahead and take a listen, this reanimation is worth your time.
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