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 (PIAS/Liberator)
Disco-punk party-starters slow the pace on album number two
New Young Pony Club’s debut was indisputably a party album, packed with catchy melodies, dance-able beats and coolly sophisticated pop songs about being young, pretty and adrift in the London nightlife. That album’s biggest strength, though, was the elastic, punk-funk bass that tied all the songs together, and this is the key element that carries over to the group’s second album. The Optimist is a darker, moodier affair than Fantastic Playroom; it is the sound of the clean up after the party, the fried nerves and the emotional fall-out. The synths are icier this time around, the arrangements fuzzier and the melodies more minor-key, but that insistent, throbbing bass is there to carry you through, reassuring you that, no matter what happens, going out dancing is always an option. Lost A Girl and We Want To are spiky and self-assured, while The Optimist and Before The Light are dreamier and dronier, songs to get lost in. The best track, though, is the last – slow, simple and kind of devastating, Architect Of Love chronicles a break-up, bringing out an unexpected vulnerability in Ty Bulmer’s vocals. The Optimist is an album that invites you to listen from beginning to end, and get lost in the haze – it’s less flashy than their first, for sure, but no less rewarding.
****
ALASDAIR DUNCAN
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