Although they dipped their toes in the pop world with a cover of Visage’s ‘Fade To Grey’, Transparent Sound’s last album, Emotional Amputation, wasn’t exactly a barrel of laughs.
However, things take a turn for the darker on Fantasy and sound all the better for it. Putting their warm, melodic influences on hold, Brown and Bramley worship at the altar of the 303, invoke the oppressive genius of ‘80s industrial and adopt the intricate production techniques of modern minimalism.
It’s still an electro album, but the lines and boundaries are blurred and, in ‘Variations Of An Attitude’, they have a slow burning big tune that could easily give them the break they so patently deserve.