NEON NEON

Brainlessly a ‘Concept’ album requires a tad-sharper attention to be able to understand & enjoy, & that’s the case here. ‘Stainless Style’ shrines & borrows its blueprints from the life of the valorous businessman ‘John DeLorean’ who contrived the DMC-12 the sleek stainless steel exoskeletal time traveling automobile with gull-wing doors from the 1985 illustrious movie ‘Back To The Future’ but the car became popularly known as the ‘De Lorean’ because of the fame & attention it brought to its creator after its conception & the state of lux he was living in. Even though he was allegedly romantically involved with the sex icon of the 70s, US film and TV star ‘Raquel Welch’, being part of the high society, creating a car that became a symbol of the 80s pop culture, & getting married 4 times, DeLorean’s life was not as shiny as the media lenses portrayed him, the man was hungry for more power & fame as he got richer & it seemed like he would’ve sold his soul to the devil to take his empire a few steps higher at a time his business wasn’t lacking any heavy burdens, specially with a debt of £85 million from the British government that he wasn’t capable of paying back. Eventually his motor company was forcibly shut & declared bankruptcy after the FBI staged a 24$ Million cocaine deal he fell for, that was supposed to save his empire. Luckily it was a fictitious crime, without the government there would be no crime & DeLorean was found not guilty due to entrapment. This man had his ultimate ups & sheer drop downs but he always took extreme measures to reach the highest power possible; an ataxic life but lived to the fullest.

Neon Neon is the manufacture of the L.A. based shape shifting, genre warping producer Boom Bip (Bryan Hollon) & cut-throat-indie-pop wizard, front man of the ‘Super Furry Animals’ Gruff Rhys. ‘Stainless Style’ parallels Boom Bip’s diamond cut punchy beats & lush artificial melodies with Gruff Rhys’s super songwriting abilities & heart-whole coaxing vocals through what could be considered a musical of the interesting aspects of the life of ‘John DeLorean’ & just like his unstable life ‘Stainless Style’ maneuvers from its pop base to other territories such as Hip-Hop, Crunk, Indie Rock, Italo Disco, Synth, and Electronica & recruits power enforcements from Spank Rock, Fat Lip, Yo Majesty, Sean Tillman (Har Mar Superstar), & Cate Le Bon to deliver a product that is crash tested, multi optional, & special.

Starting from the 80s commercially-appropriate enticing opener ‘Neon Theme’ it interlopes a thick distorted bass loop over sharp ominous synths that shines the title in neon bright lights, ‘Dream Cars’ glorifies every guy’s dream of customizing a car let alone build one from scratch & boosts with cowbells, rapid powdery snares, strong start-stop style beats & guitar, while ‘I Told Her At Alderaan’ revivifies 80s power synth rock & boasts with Rhys’s tender syllables a combination so authentic it’s certified to teleport you back into the 80s; shifting a bit from the base style the album started with comes ‘Raquel’ a song that projects an-assumed-scenario of Delorean’s thoughts of ‘Raquel Welch’ in Jamaican-ish (or Brazillian) playful power pop with tickles of bongos, & glass taps… still on the subject of girls & love ‘Trick for Treat’ & ‘I Lust you’ frankly criticizes the cold self-serving trickery involved in Hollywood relationships where love & lust has a price tag, one that is not cheap & not necessarily deals with cash, ‘Trick for Treat’ stars with a-chant-line but after a short silent pause a trip-hop-esque crunk beat kicks in rapidly accompanying a dark bassline & dial-tone beeps & bleeps that paves the way for the rap verses & cheerleading-like “It’s a Bust” shouts, while ‘I Lust You’ is a quirky med tempo Electropop tune that is one of the catchiest tracks on the whole record. As you proceed you realize the diversity of the album from the rest of the tracks like the drenched in italo-disco ‘Belfast’, the proper retro acoustic/poprock ‘Steel Your Girl’, the Missy-Elliott-like grimey & doomful siren quacker & moans full Hip-Hop battery ‘Sweat Shop’, the drum machine driven looks obsession theme ‘Michael Douglas’, the unusual storytelling-style electro rap ‘Luxury Pool’, & the death truism funeral encore ‘Stainless Style’.

01. Neon Theme
02. Dream Cars
03. I Told Her On Alderaan
04. Raquel
05. Trick For Treat (ft. Spank Rock & Sean Tillman)
06. Steel Your Girl
07. I Lust You (ft. Cate Le Bon)
08. Sweat Shop (ft. Yo Majesty)
09. Belfast
10. Michael Douglas
11. Luxury Pool (ft. Fatlip)
12. Stainless Style

One look at the credit list & you should know ‘Stainless Style’ is to be purchased blindly. There is just as much synth as guitar here, & every song sounds like an eligible blockbuster theme… if they still made the ‘DeLorean’ then this record would’ve been the ultimate accessory for it, this record should seriously be printed on stainless steel compact discs (whenever they invent one).

Absolutely a pleasure, sincerely without exaggerating I’ve played his album entirely about 7 or 8 times since I received it in the mail.

Lots of Love & Thanx to ‘Neon Neon' & their management for sending me the singles & retail album a month in advance.

‘Stainless Style’ is out on the 17th of March & the next (3rd) single is ‘I Lust You’.

*** The album sampler leaked into the internet in mid January, please do not download it because it has only 8 out of the 12 tracks & they’re not in the correct order. Make sure you add this to your ‘Must Buy’ list.