Pop...

Populator - Pop

Despite the music scene being a rather diverse and geographically widespread scene, it always surprises me to discover a band from my hometown. Populator are one such band and a surprising one for me at that in that they are very much a synthpop band, something I never thought I'd see these days despite synth music definately being back in vogue.

Populator are a trio made up of brothers Luigi and Marco Amicucci with their friend Richard Moon on vocals, all three with full time jobs in IT.

The album is short with only eight tracks to keep you interested, but short is also sweet and so the album doesn't outstay its welcome.   Populator's style is both retro 80's in sound but with a modern rhythm behind it. It works well with eight tracks that bubble along quite nicely with touches of Speak And Spell era Depeche Mode permeating the overall feel. The tracks are all very much mid tempo and the vocals are pitched quite nicely, although most appear to be treated in some way. Richard Moon's vocals remind me a lot of late 90's California synth band Exhibition and their vocalist Sean Niles, and I have to say it took me ages to work this out even though this shortlived band were real favourites of mine back in 1999.

My favourite tracks of those presented are This Feeling and Move On.

Those looking for a retro style synth band could do no worse than check out the eight tracks here, but I'm hoping that Populator up their game for the second album that is already under way. The tracks presented are all mid-tempo with plenty of atmosphere but very few melodic hooks to make each track stand out. Richard Moon also needs to be a little more confident with his vocals and stretch himself a bit. Whilst this is good enjoyable synthpop, it feels a little safe and I just feel that the trio need to be a little more bold and risky.