Dance Dance Dance…Delorean’s Subiza

Upon first listen of Delorean’s album Subiza, which is available on Itunes for digital download due to popular request, I was having a tough time figuring out what I was listening to. After listening to a few tracks, I decided to not worry about how I was going to label it and just to pay attention to the sound of it, and what made it so hypnotically catchy and yet still unique. Was it the steady beat that seemed to pound in every song, inviting even the most timid head to bob despite whom may be watching? At no point during the album’s 42 minutes was I overpowered by the choruses or disappointed by the bridges, which can be misplaced or out of place entirely in electronic music. The album had a constant, deliberate pace, but broke out of formation every now and then with playful grooves like “Simple Graces” and “Come Wander”. It managed to stay cohesive though, with the deep thump of the bass and kick running like a backbone through each song. I particularly enjoyed the finisher track, “Its All Ours”. It opens with a hypnotic jungle beat, which breaks into a bright verse. I don’t mean to sound cheesy, but I’m going to anyway- it sounds like a sunrise. Although I was overall impressed and intrigued by the album, I felt the vocals were a bit over-compressed and too heavy on the reverb during some songs. How many electronic songs can you listen to before the drums start to sound the same and each song just kind of runs into the next? For me, it doesn’t take that many, so keeping me interested is commendable. Each song had a distinct sound and feel though. More importantly, each song sounded like a Delorean song, not like 4 minutes of mindless drum and synth loops.

This record is not a far cry sonically from Aryton Senna. The 2009 E.P. sounds like the prologue to a fantastic daydream, but the band wasn’t entirely happy with it musically according to a recent XLR8R interview. The band wanted to expand from their roots in disco-punk or whatever-you-want-to-call-it and focus on the electronic aspect of their music, since the club music scene is also a large influence. Hence, Subiza is the result not of a band changing direction , but rather exploring and uncovering the hidden paths and altering and personalizing the obvious ones.

-Tehuti