Singles

MNDR - Fade To Black

Dominic Valvona 03/02/2011

Rating: 3.5/5

That bandied around 'Retro-futurist' label - quicker then saying 'looking back to the future' - often fills me with a certain resigned sour grimace. Essentially it's re-creating an already well-mined musical vista, but with better modern equipment or, sometimes, more skill and from an aloof distance.

Yet again, another ever-so achingly chic heroine steps forward into the limelight, crooning over a metallic crisp pulsing selection of antiquarian analogue and up to date snazzy software effects laden synths.

Which isn't to say that Amanda Warner, the over-sized glass sporting half of the MNDR duo, doesn't deserve some credit; as her blend of 80s electro-pop is at least well crafted and engineered. Warner has also lent her skills to aiding the Yeah Yeah Yeahs on their last album, and on tour, plus she made an appearance on Mark Ronson's glam-synth club track, Bang Bang, last year.

Alongside producer and co-writer Peter Wade, the MNDR brand unleashes a double A-side of stirring reved-up cyclonic pop, and bemoaning melodrama.

Fade To Black channels Moroder sass with clear cutting Derrick May Detroit production, as this club pounding hit jars and throbs with precession sonorous bass lines and a lifting melody.

I Go Away on the other hand, is a brooding dry-ice atmospheric breaking-up hymn, that sounds like the lost soundtrack for some 80s teenage movie fronted by Cyndi Lauper.
MNDR's debut single release in the UK shows a promising start, even if it does come across as a softer edged version of the Crystal Castles.