Brittle, cold trance, heavy vocal compression and conceptual themes form the basis of this debut album from Manchester sub-pop duo THE SYNTHETICS.
"It's very stylised...not just the sound, but in the way it looks as well" says lead vocalist Synth X:
"Instead of chasing some elusive end result, the joy has been in the process of making it. We are very much 'studio people' - and that's the bit you've got to live with at the end of the day"
"The industry's on it's arse, but from another angle it's never been more exciting....there are no rules"
The latter statement would seem to shed some light on the twosome's unorthodox decision to record and release a full-legnth record without having notched up a single live appearance:
"There are contstraints if you feel you've got to play live...you have to do it a certain way" explains multi-instrumentalist and the album's producer Synth Y:
"We thought 'Let's just make an album, and then worry about the rest of it later'"
The Synthetics are, by their own admission 'no spring chickens', something that's reflected in a slightly cynical, 'grown up', house music-based sound that's been reworked into a series of considered and controlled soft synth symphonies.
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Characterised by repetition and simple chord structures, tracks like the F.S.O.L.-styled opener 'A Blunt Instrument' and the subsequent 'Swansong' swerve through several changes of tempo, with the Synth X falsetto adding a fragile quality to these ostensibly powerful songs.
The sheer head-mashing ketamine-y stomp of 'The Elephant In The Room' blurs the bigger picture, with the huge-sounding electronic percussion pounding in tandem with a 5-piece drum kit.
And if the acid-siren 'Riot Act/Scattergun' doesn't act as a wake-up call, there's always the six-minute-eleven second sonic drama of the title track that morphs, chimes, bumps and grinds a path towards eventual disintegration.
Carefully created and intricate, yet blessed with a massive feel, 'Black(Grey Area)White' identifies THE SYNTHETICS as deep thinkers and sets them apart from the bandwagon-jumping majority.
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