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They are based in Canada. They are one part Arab and one part Jew. They practise the bastardized art of 80’s drenched electro-funk. They are known individually as P-Thugg and Dave 1. They should sound geographically displaced, musically vulgar and wholly wrong, but conclusion jumping is bad form and Chromeo, as they are collectively known, retrofit with a garish sophistication that casually courts the dance-floor before politely refusing in search of a better offer.
Some bands exist through sterilised influence, yet Chromeo seem to audaciously live the dream creating an uninhibited niche by repackaging several decades of embellished memories as boutique originals and selling them - the likes of ‘I’m Not Contagious’, ‘Night By Night’ and ‘The Right Type’ - as how the 80’s really sounded to those too young to remember but old enough to own a Topman store card.
True to sounding like a fantasy 80s’ film soundtrack, this includes seduction, drama and expectation - all of which are best illustrated through ‘When The Night Falls’, complete with a femme fatale vocal courtesy of a certain Solange (Beyonce’s younger sister) Knowles.
To say that nothing good came out of the 80s is quite simply wrong, but that doesn’t mean that reworked, smile inducing, fleetingly fantastic, up-tempo nostalgia can’t in places wear disappointingly thin. ‘Hot Mess’ opening with the sexually amorphous delivered lyric: “You’re a hot mess, you act like you’ve got nothing to lose, well I’ve already lost my temper” and ‘Grow Up’ threatening to implode under the weight of its own self-created similarity, albeit with a spectacularly glittering sparkle.
Guilty pleasures by their very nature are rarely guilt-free. Yet with an abundance of self-important synthesiser, indulgent electric guitar and designer clad strut, Chromeo’s third album, a revived syncopated success born by design and not accident, is a guilty pleasure to be proud of.
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