Drab City - Good Songs For Bad People

Drab City have chosen a very specific direction for this debut: take the music of the ‘60s, strain it through modern production elements, and add dark lyricism. And they stick to this unreservedly, through the plucked minor chords of Leonard Cohen on ‘Working For The Men’, the sexy restraint of David Bowie on ‘Devil Doll’, or even an apocalyptic Ronettes coming to life in ‘Just Me & You’, led through it all by a vocal reminiscent of favourite throwback Lana Del Rey. But, like other production duos (Underworld coming to mind), Drab City layer in modern flavours, with drum machines and reverberating guitars often crashing in and then fading to nothing. And with hardly a chorus on it, the closest we get being the meandering ‘Troubled Girl’, this album folds you in with textures and suggestion rather than big hooks, with the lyrics leaving a lot to unpack. This is not an album of obvious blaring colours, but of a hypnotic dark swirl, asking you to find its heart. Listen to it twice, or more, for full effect.