A few months ago, Violens gave away a mixtape to create anticipation for their debut LP, Amoral. It featured various remixes, a previously viral song written with Chairlift's Caroline Polachek set to the video for Justin Bieber's "Never Let You Go", as well as a cut called "Space Around the Feel Station", a mashup of Washed Out's "Feel It All Around" and Slowdive's "Souvlaki Space Station". The result sounded exactly how you'd expect-- it's a god-awful mess-- but it also highlighted an important facet of the NYC new-wave outfit's personality: They aren't cool, and they never really have been, even though bandleader Jorge Elbrecht did time in the enigmatic, now-dormant 1980s-worshipping collective Lansing-Dreiden. Violens embrace clean production, anthemic choruses, and a lack of reverb-obscured shyness-- they're so sonically far away from the hip-to-death Brooklyn scene that they might as well be in New Jersey.
Of course, all that is catnip for those longing for the early-aughts halcyon days of shiny Manhattan rock (the Strokes, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Interpol), and Amoral will undoubtedly play like gangbusters to that crowd. And why shouldn't it? If nothing else, Elbrecht and his cohorts have made a worthy debut that evokes early-80s new pop, Nagel paintings, and neon lighting as much as it does the stadium-sized downcast bombast of Echo and the Bunnymen. That messed-up, multi-color face on the cover might hint at the band's slight psych leanings, but it certainly doesn't represent how the record sounds, which is expensive and expansive. Rhythms crisply snap, guitars sound bright, and even the occasional torrent of feedback is slathered in gold.
Violens are at their best when they keep things snappy and upbeat, like on the downward spiral of "Acid Reign" or the Boo Radleys-recalling "The Dawn of Your Happiness Is Rising". By contrast, they get themselves a little lost on Amoral's back half, as "Trance-Like Turn" and "Another Strike Restrained" turn the course from sweep-y to sleepy. Meanwhile, the record's genre diversions, such as the paisley pop of "Violent Sensation Descends" and the stormgazing "Could You Stand to Know?", suggest that while Violens may know their sonic touchstones inside and out, they're better sticking to the haircut-obsessed sounds showcased on Amoral's standouts. They're not going to book any D.I.Y. basement shows or anything by doing so, but when you sound as huge as these guys do, the idea of a stage itself becomes irrelevant.
