Album Review: Late of the Pier – “Fantasy Black Channel”

Worlds collide in Castle Donington, England. Devo grows up a punk band; disco hones its chops at CBGB; black leather sprouts sequins. Late of the Pier wears the side effects. A four-piece from the British Isles, the young new wave act shows off all manner of mishmashed influences, piecing together a sound that filters the '80s' choice bits through a laptop, distorts them to hell and discards everything else. This cut-and-paste style makes room for swirling synths, Nintendo-bleep percussion, even Sabbath-lite riff rock ("Heartbeat"). But these secondary players all feed off the band's bread and butter: the almighty groove, which achieves a heightened state in the form of the menacing electro-blast called "Whitesnake." It's a song that unlocks imaginative, other-dimension scenarios - two-steppers take over Studio 54; Madge learns guitar; hipsters dance to power chords.