Even though they've put out an album and EP already, Operators feels like a new band. The members are Dan Boeckner, Devojka, and Sam Brown, with Boeckner most known for his work with Wolf Parade. The group's newest long-player, Radiant Dawn, dropped yesterday on Last Gang Records, and it's darn good. My long-time friend Stan Cierlitsky hipped me to this one as, oddly, it somehow didn't show up on my radar. I'm happy to offer a big heads-up here now for this release, though.
What Operators do here on Radiant Dawn is something similar to what The Killers did so many years ago, and that is, they take something familiar from the past and make it feel fresh and exciting again. I mean, could anyone not hear a huge New Order influence in stuff like "I Feel Emotion" or the epic "Faithless", or even a faint echo of early Depeche Mode in the bouncy "Despair"? What's on Radiant Dawn uniformly owes huge debts to past pioneers like those acts but, thankfully, Boeckner and co. imbue this stuff with enough emotion and wit that the tunes here take on a large cinematic sweep, with the melodies simple and direct ones, and the hooks big and poppy in the right ways. The overall effect here on Radiant Dawn is one that's sure to please those of us who played Violator a whole lot, for example. The compositions of Operators are tuneful, and full of sleek surfaces, such that this is an album that's very easy to love.
Radiant Dawn by Operators is out now via Last Gang Records.
More details on Operators via the band's official Facebook page, or official website.
[Photo: Britt Kubat]