Gardens + Villa – Dunes

To say that Gardens + Villa sound very now on ‘Dunes’, the follow-up to their 2011 self-titled debut, would be to mean they’ve perfected that balance of using late 70s / early 80s synth sounds, a bunch of instruments hitherto relegated to gathering dust on primary school classroom shelves, and for the most part not sounding all that old. It’s cool to use sonic Instagram filters, right?

It’s espadrilles without socks, it’s chinos, it’s shoulder pads – on ‘Colony Glen’ it’s the theme to Knight Rider. There’s a flute. There’s slap bass, and during the falsettoed vocal line of ‘Bullet Train’ the distinct terrifying possibility that the main influence for the track comes from one Gordon Sumner. No, really. Less awkwardly comes the Cure-indebted guitars of ‘Echosassy’ and its post-punk bassline, but while these are all nice enough sounds pulled off to varying levels of success – there’s not a lot being said. The closest the Californians come to memorable falls to the retro-futurist ‘Avalanche’, which comes across like a watered-down Passion Pit, and ‘Minnesota’. Which, although easily the emotive high-point of ‘Dune’ with its resigned melancholy, doesn’t really fit in. A right Sunday evening of a song, it’s far more organic than anything that surrounds it.

That ‘Dunes’ finishes with a barely-there outro of quiet, atmospheric synth sounds is telling. Gardens + Villa undoubtedly have many toys at which they’re more than adept at manipulating – just a shame there aren’t better songs for them to adorn.