Demos

Air To Achilles - If My Heart Stops Beating

Owain Paciuszko 12/03/2010

Rating: 3/5

Almost buoyant synth pop when If My Heart Stops Beating starts with its game-show synths and strident drum beat, there's something silly and optimistic to this track that pitches itself as an electro Kings of Leon type number. It's kind of bi-polar in so much as I kind of like and don't like it at the same time, it's joyful and fun but at the same time pretty insipid.

Universal Decay is more blatantly eighties influenced, with twinkling synths in the background like (and I'm plagiarising myself here) a deleted entry to The Lost Boys soundtrack. It's more skittish than the lead track, and has less of a solid grounding to springboard off of than the far more entertaining opener; then there's a slow bridge where Jon's guitar goes all U2 circa City of Blinding Lights. As a whole it doesn't work, jittering all over the place like a Tasmanian Devil listening to The Killers.

This is a less successful pairing than previous effort Holy Ghost, with the lead track aiming for something a tad vapid, but kinda fun. Whether it's a minor mis-step for a band that seem content treading carefully - and slowly - as they find their voice could only be judged in comparison to a fuller release, but, regardless, Air To Achilles remain one of the more intriguing of the current crop of eighties-electro nostaglics.