Album Review: Datarock - Face The Brutality

The Norwegian band who briefly charmed triple j in the mid-noughties with squint-and-you'd-swear-they-were-Gerling type quirky indie-pop return for their fourth album of… pretty much exactly what they were doing 13 years ago.

Face The Brutality is a knowingly ironic title, delivering ten tracks of funky daftness and '80s genre geostorming. The chiptune hyper-colour of opener BMX followed by Ruffle Shuffle's Human League obsessed androgynous robots wearing make-up quickly sets the dayglo scene and it seems like Datarock are still trying to be Talking Heads presenting a series of walkthrough art installations.

It's great they obviously love New Order (as one should), but Invitation To Love possesses a bass line that Peter Hook should rightfully issue a royalty invoice for despite not actually playing it himself. Make no mistake, this is far from a miserable experience with plenty to bob the head while you bounce on imaginary spring-soled shoes, from Everything's Afrobeat-lite rhythm section to crooning beatnik poetry in Laugh In The Face Of Darkness, but the brutal truth to face here is that Datarock have become as fabulously unique in their soundspace as they are utterly disposable.