(Electronic / Synthpop) Soft Metals - Soft Metals - 2011, MP3, 256 kbps

The Portland duo of Patricia Hall and Ian Hicks will release their self-titled debut album on July 19 via Brooklyn’s Captured Tracks, home to Blank Dogs, Wild Nothing, Led Er Est et al. Formed in 2009, they claim to be variously influenced by “early industrial music, minimal synth, 1980s Chicago house, synth pop, and italo disco”, and it’s fair to say that traces of all these underground sounds can be detected in their svelte synth-pop productions.
But what makes them stand out from the myriad other biters of these sounds is their punchy, purposeful songwriting, their flab-free arrangements and the crystalline vocals of Hall, which come over like a heavily reverbed, robotized descendent of Young Marble Giants’ Alison Statton. This is proper electronic pop music, coolly (retro)futuristic but sweepingly romantic, and highly recommended to fans of John Foxx, early Human League and modern day standard-bearers like Xeno & Oaklander and John Maus.