Post War Years - The Greats And The Happenings

At the risk of making a swooping generalisation, it could be said that often arty electro bands tend to demand to be taken fairly seriously and could - just occasionally - be accused of having a sense of humour bypass. On first appearances, shots of Post War Years seem to confirm the stereotype, with the band emerging moodily from the shadows, lit by an unforgiving white light against a deathly black background. But although much of their debut album is doubtlessly fiercely clever, there’s also a massive sense of fun and even (whisper it) a bit of a party atmosphere going on mere millimetres below the surface. Clever clogs they may be, but they want you to dance around like loons whilst being suitably impressed with them.

‘Death March’ sees drummer Fred bang out some heavy duty tribal drums over woozy synths while frontman Simon delivers plenty of unnerving paranoid (and paranoia-inducing) vocals. ‘Whole World On Its Head’ is a stylish affair, with spooky bubblgum popping synths bouncing along under a huge, wobbly bassline, while ‘Den’ has a much more experimental air about it, with syncopated guitars competing with swathes of lush synths. In fact, many of the album’s tracks give a little nod to the band’s professed love of fellow surreal electro pixies Clor and Bjork. From the credible funk lurchings of ‘False Starts’ to the music-box shuffle of ‘Soul Owl’, there’s a feast here for your ears, and its twelve delicious courses long - so here’s hoping you’re ravenous.

To pigeonhole Post War Years as yet more creators of off-kilter, warped electro doesn’t do the band justice – it’s way too limiting a definition. They come across as bursting at the seams with ideas, with hundreds of thoughts, moods and styles jostling for position in each track like a bunch of journos at a free bar. The clever part is that the band never allow these bubbling, disparate ideas to suffocate one another during the tracks – you can hear where each fragment of the song is coming from even if you’re not quite sure how they’ve managed to sew it all together so seamlessly.