Keeping it cool

This album is much cooler than you are. I don‰’t mean this as an insult or a compliment, more as a statement of mere fact. If this album were somebody, it would be the young people at a party who have excellent, perfectly disheveled haircuts and a wardrobe of exclusively black, and never seem to visibly have fun at a party. That‰’s alright though, because without them, the party just isn‰’t worth going to. Though Trust is often put in the genre of coldwave or darkwave, at its core, Joyland is a straight up synthpop record which, though it starts a bit slow, is full of legitimate dance floor smashes. Layers of synths make up most of each song here, and while most fall pretty squarely in the icy and groovy category, the occasionally ray of synthesized sunshine beams through, most notably on the title track which is downright cheery, seeing frontman Robert Alfons dropping his usual deep mumble for an endearing falsetto. Other songs break up the midtempo dance monotony, such as the second track “Geryon‰” which propels itself forward at a mile a minute, and “Peer Pressure‰Û, which has more in common with Avicci than it does with Bauhaus. The record occasionally suffers from being too cool for school and maintaining the same sound for far too long, but when it comes to 80‰’s worshipping, self-serious solo acts, you can‰’t do much better than Trust.

RIYL: Crystal Castles, The Knife, Joy Division, Depeche Mode
Recommended Tracks: 2, 5, 7, 10