When exactly does a genre graduate from the fickle roller coaster of hibernations and revivals to the permanent pantheon of musical style choices? While some sounds come and go, accumulating new names from the critical taxonomy each time, others become gracefully perennial and stable. Only the most myopic among us can claim that genres like metal or psych or garage-rock actually ever go away, rather than momentarily exit the indie stage for a costume change every couple years. But other sounds are given a Welcome Back party, complete with banner and NME feature, whenever their frequency takes a small uptick.
Post-punk is one of these latter characters, celebrated as returning so often it never leaves. Given that it has been being revived for pretty much all of the 00s, it's time to start thinking of it less as a houseguest than as a roommate. One sign of this permanence is when bands start making just plain really good competent examples of the genre that don't herald any kind of resurgence we need to get suitably jacked up for. Fantastic Playroom is one of these albums; though saddled with the latest tagline for 1981 nostalgia, new-rave, New Young Pony Club turn out a record that is meticulous and comfortable in its genre-specific craft, and excellent for it.
While the full length's thunder is somewhat dampened by the almost three-year blog/single/EP ramp-up, it's still an impressive collection of single-worthy tracks. We've all heard and become lactose-intolerant to "Ice Cream" by now, thanks to Intel, but it's not the only bullet in NYPC's gun: The barb-wire guitar of "Get Lucky" and the slot-machine punk-funk of "The Bomb" measure up well to the jingle's stature. "The Get Go" doesn't sound quite as forceful without Trillville mixed over it (cf. A-Trak's Dirty South Dance) but instead floats and skitters simultaneously.
There are enough post-punk touchpoints here to keep the Musical Shoplifting Police busy for hours, right before stamping them as frauds exploiting their audience's history blind spots. But even those who lived it the first time (or, you know, read books about the first time) should be able to hand NYPC credit for getting the sound right. "Hiding on the Staircase", irritatingly snide vocals aside, is a further reassurance that the kids keep studying their Remain in Light for an escape hatch out of the old slashing-guitars and hi-hat dead-end, while "Grey" feints a hi-NRG ringtone beginning before retreating to the first pages of the Cure discography. Thrill as "Get Lucky" morphs from tired old Gang of Four to less-tapped Depeche Mode. Even early Madonna gets a reference whirl on closer "Tight Fit", which mimes her post-disco sound.
Credit Tahita Bulmer for adding enough personality to keep Fantastic Playroom from being just a meticulous period piece. Though the hard-to-get, disinterested come-ons of "Ice Cream" would become unbearably cloying stretched over an entire record, Bulmer shows off a deeper playbook, hopping easily back and forth between dreamy-pop singing and shouted tough-talk on "The Bomb" or drifting gently over the last-call of "The Get Go". Only toward the end of the album, when Bulmer slips into the fashionably-bored delivery of electroclash on "Fan" and "Talking, Talking", does she slip up, before making a nice, versatile recovery on the slinky "Tight Fit".
The danger with Fantastic Playroom is that there's nothing new, or even re-polished here; even the most casual indie fans have become used to the strip-mining of the early 80s and know all the maneuvers. Consider NYPC a revival act, and the reaction is that they're late to the party, settling on the same reference territory as others before them. But if post-punk has finally earned tenure on the genre faculty, digging up some yet-to-be-unearthed obscurity to mime or adding new technology to a 25-year-old sound is less a priority. Fantastic Playroom puts the emphasis on the content, not the trend, and in so doing makes a damn good case for post-punk's matriculation.
