Andrew Thurlow Wood was in a band called Bridges and Powerlines but he's re-emerged as Thurlowood to offer up the doomsday-centered Discontinue Normal Program. The self-released record, out as of yesterday, takes on a relevance that perhaps he didn't intend when he recorded it, given our current pandemic-induced lock-down conditions. That said, the music is not horrific or something.
"Survivalist" is bright and shimmering, bits here recalling the simpler moments on an LCD Soundsystem release, maybe, while the spry "Shell" uses the kind of naive keyboard figures that helped The Postal Service achieve such success. While the songs are as light as air, the themes are not necessarily. And tunes like "Reverie" and "Madman" carry within their Eighties-synth-fueled grooves a sense of imminent danger. The whole end of the world-vibe here helps lend this material a poignancy it might not have had on its own, despite being tuneful stuff. "Clouds" and "Hawaiian Sunshine" are more mellow and pensive, but closer "Elegy/Unless" is epic and cinematic. The final cut here on Discontinue Normal Program is really affecting, but the rest of the record is a pleasure too, and one which deserves some real word-of-mouth buzz to start up.
Discontinue Normal Program is out now via the link below.
More details on Thurlowood via the official Facebook page.
[Photo: David Yang]