Search - Kamera :: Resurrection

(un)discovered SWEDISH New Wave act! AWESOME!!!

Romano Angelo R. Suguitan | 12/22/2008

(5 out of 5 stars)

"How do you praise something that is as patently derivative as Kamera's 'Resurrection' CD? Pop 'Resurrection' into your CD player and you'll hear shades of New Order, Information Society, the Cure, Dead or Alive, Depeche Mode, and just about every other band that had a keyboard and an excess of black eyeliner in the `80s. While it's true that you don't necessarily need innovation in order to create great music, can it possibly help matters if the creation process adheres strictly to some template of what serious `80s synth-pop once was?



Example: "TV Lights" is a highly danceable bit of dark pop music with lots of bell and string synths, a prominent slap bassline, and Joakim Hjelm's distinctive (as in, he sounds like he might actually be holding his nose the whole time he sings) vocals. This is all well and good, since words like "Shine on / We knock the radio out / Shine on / Know what we're talking about / Shine on / Make sure the truth won't come out" are generic enough to not distract from the overall picture, and it gets a decent little groove going over the course of its four-and-a-half minutes.



All of that said, a few of these songs really could have been huge hits, in that they have a knack for earworming their way through your skull and lodging themselves in your brain until you've sung them to yourself enough times to be declared legally insane. The devious little back-to-back duo of "Borderline" (not a cover of the Madonna song, sadly) and "Like a Drug" is tuneful, danceable, and repetitive in all the right ways. If you're not singing "I wanna run down the borderline...with YOUUUUU / Oowooo ooo oooowooo oo oooo" after you've heard "Borderline" twice, you may never, ever have a song stuck in your head. Congratulations. "Fragile" is the best club track on the album, practically crying out for glowsticks and big hair, and "I'm Gonna Be Your Lover" is a fantastic little example of treading the obsession/devotion line in art-pop-ballad form.



KAMERA is a Swedish New Wave and Indiepop band. Just imagine listening to MY FAVORITE and ACID HOUSE KINGS at the same time and ya have KAMERA!!!"