Mode Moderne - Strange Bruises

With an opening track about smoking with cats in an alleyway, ‘Strange Bruises’ heralds the return of Vancouver post-punkers Mode Moderne. The album, working as a follow-up to 2009’s ‘Ghost Emerging’, is released by Light Organ Records. There’s your background knowledge, now onwards we go.

There’s one undeniable aspect to Mode Moderne’s music, and it’s that they love post-punk. Drawing on influences such as The Cure and Joy Division, as well as sharing similar sounds to more modern artists such as The Horrors and Spector, the Vancouver quintet aren’t ones to break free of these chains. They have their sound, and they’re sticking to it no matter what. That’s the main criticism of the record, it has an very one dimensional sound. On occasion they move away from their influences, with the record-titled ‘Strange Bruises’ being a prime example, although the track is still dripping in ‘Lovesong’ basslines.

All too often there’s a sense of repetition amongst their work, and while the record flows brilliantly, it’s always taking the safer paths. The darker tone of ‘Foul Weather Fare’ comes off as much fresher, but it’s a rare jewel in an otherwise plain crown. It’s clear that they’re appreciative of their influences, and while that isn’t a crime, simply copying the blueprint is. Nostalgia will only get you so far before people start asking where your own originality is going to come in, and it seems like a question that the Vancouverites are unwilling to answer.

It isn’t that the songs are bad or poorly written, in fact they’re tightly recorded and sound like they’d be even better live, but they lack inspiration and sometimes come across as forced, but perhaps the bar has just been set too high. If Mode Moderne don’t own the entire back catalogue of The Cure between them, then this y-chromosome owning human will eat his own words. They’ll be printed off on a Juki 6100 and swallowed whole. Kele Okereke once muttered the words “live the dream like the 80s never happened”, but unfortunately that seems to something this five-piece are unable to do.