If you believed every single press release which accompanies any new album, you’d be excused for just throwing away all your record collection each time, as what’s just arrived in your inbox is truly the dogs danglies.
Very occasionally, the hype meets the reality, and with Manchester Electo/New Wave 3 piece, Yossari Baby’s debut release, those dizzy heights are within touching distance. This is for fans of early Depeche Mode, Human League, OMD, Kraftwerk, Nitzer Ebb and Ultravox, updated for 21st Century urban living.
Title track Inferiority Complex opens the album, transporting you back in time (in a good way), with shades of Vince Clarke keyboards, to the early 80s but with the added bonus of guitar parts weaved in subtlely.
I Don’t Believe You has the distinct feeling of a Camden Palace floor filler from the New Romantic era. You can almost smell the hairspray and see the girls with huge back combed hair and elegant evening gloves, gyrating around the dance floor, seemingly punching an invisible dwarf that’s invaded their personal space.
By the time we get to The Wheel, a slightly more industrial Nitzer Ebb vibe develops, containing the best lyric I’ve heard in a long time “your face reminds me, of the jabberwocky” and now we’re under the arches at Heaven, bending our genders and passing round the amyl.
Get The Devil Out reminds me of Shriekback, and Again has a My Life Story feel about it, lounge music from a soundtrack album for late night listening.
It’s All Up is what The B52’s might sound like if they’d gone down an electro route
“He’s the groove, he’s the man, he’s the Pope in The Vatican”, opens the jarring, chaotic exercise that is He’s The Groove, sounding a little like Age of Chance.
Personal fave, Je Suis Mort brings the album to a close in a measured, come down way, with a less compressed, more airy feel, akin to Human League.
Inferiority Complex is available now from Alphaville Records
