Artist: Neon Indian
Album: Era Extraña
Label: Static Tongues/Mom + Pop
http://neonindian.com/

Written by Matthew Later

Despite its recent growth in popularity, Chillwave still remains the butt of an ever increasing number of jokes in the indiesphere, and to no one’s surprise. After all, it was indie/hipster parodist Carles that is credited for inventing the term. A relative nongenre, categorized by computerized synths, breezy vocal melodies, and 80s pop fetishism, it’s been used to apply to only a quantum of current artists and a plethora of bands jumping on the bandwagon with only a Song or two to their name. Just as it’s reaching its peak however, chillwave progenitor Neon Indian, the alias of musician Alan Palomo, appears to be running away from every notion that the term has come to suggest—and that’s a good thing.

Palomo is in no way abandoning his portfolio of catchy pop hooks stamped over laptop concoctions of swirling synths on his latest, Era Extraña, but rather giving these simple melodic riffs the layering and depth that they deserve. Even the fifty-nine second instrumental opener “Heart: Attack” (the first of three “Heart” titled songs on the album) manages to successfully probe into the album’s core and pull out a quick spacey rise and fall crushed between a single pulsing beat and shrill effects seemingly pulled straight from an 8-bit videogame. Era’s first true, full song (“Polish Girl”) also goes to show that he hasn’t sacrificed melody for mood, and cranks out his catchiest, bounciest tune to date.

Beyond those first two songs, Palomo expresses a willingness to continue shifting through various stylistic influences, be it the shoegazy gauze “Blindside Kiss” or the accentuated new wave feel of “Halogen: I Could Be a Shadow”. The album’s eponymous track goes to show that even one of the founders of a genre has no problem adhering too strictly to its traditional sound, especially when that sound is as specific as chillwave. The viscous “Era Extrana” is just as exciting as any of his more uptempo tracks on the album, and is a credit to Palomo’s excellent sense of pacing.

The three “Heart”-titled tracks can more or less be used as demarcation points to illustrate exactly how true that statement holds: The aforementioned “Heart: Attack” has a certain edge and tension with its central synthline growing in strength amidst a barrage of far out sounds. “Heart: Decay” shows off a smaller side to Neon Indian, one more demure and clustered, as one might expect from such a title, but not necessarily for a song placed dead center in the tracklist. “Heart: Release” is no stranger to Palomo’s pop tendencies, and recalls the simplicity of his earlier work while still seeming to merge the earlier two songs with which it shares a common name.

Neon Indian has not made any drastic departures from its initial release, nor does it seem like they will anytime in the future. What they have done is added a much needed level of atmospheric variegation and layered complexity to what had previously been a primarily one tone project. Of course, the album closer “Arcade Blues” recalls a simpler time in the Neon Indian catalogue and while I find it easier to appreciate the band’s newer work as a whole, it just goes to show that even the most basic chillwave has its own merit.

B+ (88)