A Corpse Wired for Sound by Merchandise

Circling back to the 80s again (see #31), we find ourselves listening to Merchandise, from Tampa. This is not the kind of music you’d expect to come out of sunny Florida. It’s dark and brooding, somewhere in the vicinity of gothic icons like Depeche Mode, Bauhaus, and Joy Division, with industrial noise, synthesizers, drum machines and well-produced guitars filling in the melodies. Throw in a little INXS-esque pop hooks, and you’ve got a good basis for what to expect with the album. The eighties are alive and well in Tampa, apparently.

This is technically the band’s fifth album since forming in 2008, but I’ve not heard nor am I compelled to seek out their previous work (the description of this album and the band’s history on the 4AD website essentially says that even though the trio that made this album was responsible for the previous albums, this one is entirely unlike anything they’ve produced before it. There’s also a mysterious lack of information about this band; for a band to have five albums, even with a stupidly generic name like Merchandise, you should still be able to find a wikipedia page on them. NOPE.

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27. Away by Okkervil River
28. case/lang/veirs by case/lang/veirs
29. Love Letter for Fire by Sam Beam & Jesca Hoop
30. Barbara Barbara, We Face a Shining Future by Underworld
31. Preoccupations by Preoccupations