Album Review: Clubfeet - Heirs And Graces

There's so much air in the Clubfeet sound, essential for a band so firmly rooted in the sounds of the synth-drenched new wave '80s. However, there's something oddly organic about the particular take on that sound this Melbourne collective evoke, strongly reminiscent in its way of The Go-Betweens in their Streets Of Our Town-period. There's something deeply romantic, even nostalgic, about tracks like Cold Rain, with its touch of melancholic INXS horn, or the single, Heartbreak, featuring the album's only guest, singer Chela.

The first three tracks make for a warm, fuzzy 'lost summer' sort of listening experience. The songs are built over simple chord patterns, looping drums and percussion. And a languid lead vocal, often up in the falsetto end of things, somehow counterbalances and humanises the other side of the album. Those elements come to the fore through the middle section of the album that could – and probably will – be remixed up to make cuts like Acapulco & LA and Cape Town certified dancefloor bangers.

So there's a bit of a balancing act going on across Heirs And Graces. Between those more blatantly 'electro' elements and the quietly 'human' ones - most cogently expressed through the voice of singer Sebastian Cohen; one minute the intimate, next minute the upbeat fodder for the feet (often in the one song). It's the potential for club remixing that saw the debut Clubfeet album, Gold On Gold, picked up by NYC's underground dance label, Plant Music, and so I imagine this second album will similarly see its more melancholic pop element subsumed by some 'identity' remixer for alternative clubland fodder. Which would be a pity really, when there's so much soul behind all the blips and burps.