When Saints Go Machine - Fail Forever

As winners of the Danish National Radio Talent of the Year Award, there’s the potential for a prospective listener to When Saints Go Machine to steer clear – it seems likely that a radio-endorsed band will be all melody and little substance, especially when they come attached to the now-questionable electro-pop tag. For better or for worse however, this group’s !K7 debut EP proves that they’re quite the opposite.

There’s a wilful sense of playful pastiche at work throughout, adopting, enmeshing and bastardising familiar dance hallmarks and more far-flung sonic inspirations to create a sound that never quite stays still enough to categorise. The skipping beat and synth vibraphone that begin the title track recall ‘90s club-fodder, but only last as long as the intro, before Nikolaj Manuel Vonsild’s deep, warbling tones turn the whole affair into nocturnal electro, complete with plaintive ‘cello sweeps. And that’s the just the opener.

Over the course of ‘Fail Forever’’s eighteen minutes we hear warped, aquatic chill-out in ‘Pick Up Your Tears And Run’, the sounds of thumping hip-hop beats being passed through the 21st century R&B of ‘Pinned’ and the industrial stomp of Nine Inch Nails applied liberally to the sort of overblown, trembling string sections Sufjan Stevens seems so fond of these days (‘Greys And Blues’). By and large, the experimentation is clearly working but results in the sort of experience that never offers a clear standout track. The five songs travel through dreamy, narcotic-soaked soundscapes that never clear quite enough for a melody to engage with the listener.

When Saints Go Machine clearly have the talent to offer complex, genre-literate songs, but for a band so entrenched in the tropes of dance music, one question continuously hangs over the length of this record: where are the hooks? Then again, if Danish radio stations are rewarding groups like this, we’d like a little more When Saints Go Machine and a little less Black Eyed Peas on ours, please.