Album Review: Chad Valley - Young Hunger

Love for this album will likely be divided into two camps, answerable by a single question: do you miss the '80s? As the recording name for Hugo Manuel, Chad Valley's first full-length, following the well received 2011 EP, Equatorial Ultravox, bursts into being with pounding artificial drum beats and proudly cheesy synthesiser tones amped way up into the red. The lush, loud, sugary pop is pure 1986 excess. The character of the album is established early on, and there's little room for it to move.

Essential, seductive single, Fall 4 U, features proto-kraut rock backing beats reminiscent of an early Can or Kraftwerk track – they're just hidden in saccharine electronica synth-shimmering and Hammond organ-sounding keyboard solos. Again, it must be stressed, this is an album for the '80s synth pop lovers.

The admittedly delightful overblown music manages to largely mask Manuel's occasional shortcoming as a singer, as does the odd bit of modern auto-tune here and there. The album is pleasant enough a debut, and could signify a really interesting future for Chad Valley, though the record's vibe of '80s as idea over reality (really – how many horn-sounding keyboard solos do you want?) does begin to wear thin after a while.

This album, with its uniform emotional impact, lovelorn and new romantic, is more 1980s than the 1980s – a near pure idea of a lost time the artist wasn't born to see, yet romanticises with all he has. You probably won't buy into the idea as deeply as he does, but it's hard not to smile at nostalgia for an imagined age.