There were shimmering moments on 2009’s excellent A Brief History Of Love wherein the Big Pink appeared poised to sneak the adventurous, clever early-’80s synthpop of the New Romantics back into relevance beneath a cloak of Phil Spector (by way of Jesus And Mary Chain) noise. The vision, alas, remained a bit murky, lost in Psychocandy-lite squalls, never quite cohering into a fully realized whole. On the band’s beguiling sophomore effort Future This (4AD), however, the Brit electro-gaze duo lives up to its considerable promise with 10 sleek tour-de-force anthems: Imagine a Y-chromosome-fronted Britpop version of Tegan And Sara or maybe a grittier, wised-up a-ha backed by a supergroup comprised of Kevin Shields, Bernard Sumner and Jam Master Jay, and you’ll be in the right neighborhood. “Lose Your Mind” could be a Simple Minds b-side circa “Sanctify Yourself.” In short, a fantastic, uplifting listening experience. The Big Pink’s Milo Cordell and Robbie Furze will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our brand new Q&A with Cordell.
Milo Cordell: This is the first Stephen King novel I ever read, and it has remained my favourite. A deadly virus hits a small town in America and spreads quickly, exterminating most of the human race. A small group of people are immune, and they split into groups of good and evil. They made a straight-to-video kind of film of it with Rob Lowe and Molly Ringwald.
Video after the jump.
