The Last Sound: Rainbow Xplode

The Last Sound’s Barry Murphy has been making music since 1992, when a computer, sampler and sequencer kick-started a lifelong love affair with electronic music. Since then, four Last Sound albums and three EPs have been released, touching on industrial shoegaze, steely krautrock and scuzzy prog. So far, so underground.
Fifth album Rainbow Xplode marks, if not a departure for Murphy and his drumming associate Bryan O’Connell, perhaps, a shift in priorities. As well as being the poppiest thing I’ve heard from the Dublin outfit, the hook-heavy 10-tracker flaunts skills we didn’t know Murphy had: namely, an aptitude for writing party-starting melodies and a knack for crafting singalong vocal lines.
There are tropical summer jams (‘Sun Forever’), festival-ready dance anthems (‘Only The Lonely Know That The Glow Is Failing’) and euphoria-driven trips (‘Three Rock’) – sounds that could easily slip onto the menu at a house party or Indie club night without disrupting the floor-filling flow. Echoes of vintage Devo and Gary Numan can be heard on ‘Brighter’ and ‘Into Something’ respectively, while song titles like ‘Liebezeit’ and ‘Motorik Plan’ hide sneakily danceworthy rhythms.
But wait! Seasoned fans will be glad to hear that all this crowd-courting, whether intentional or otherwise, has been created with The Last Sound’s trademark severity. Chirpy choruses melt into strikingly murky beatscapes and even the breeziest of moments carry a dark, mechanical undertone. Plus, there are still tracks, like the deliciously brash ‘Nth Xploder’ that would strike fear into the hearts of mainstream radio playlist-makers.
Coming from a band who specialise in avant garde electronica, Rainbow Xplode is a canny and fearless step in a more accessible direction. But while the 36-minute LP is home to oodles of great ideas, it’s not immune to bouts of fatigue either. At times, ambitious production exhausts the arrangements and clever instrumental or vocal pieces get lost in the din.
Thankfully, this is the exception: hook for hook, Rainbow Xplode is a confident, invigorating record and one that might just provide The Last Sound with their first slow-burning hit.

Key Track: 'Sun Forever'