The Bodies Obtained Cry When You Cry

The 80's revival seems to carry on and on and on and for the most part it's all been done to death and redone to death again but every once and a while something or someone comes along and takes a different look at the 80's and what made it such a bizarre decade. They then re-tune it into something new and even more bizarre then it was the first time around. The Bodies Obtained happens to be one of those bands that takes the decade and sculpts it into something even stranger. Their latest album,
I Cry When You Cry is so far from being new wave influenced that it wouldn't know what Frankie said if he hit them on the head.

What The Bodies Obtained do know is how to write obtuse dark and angular electronic music that sounds like Fad Gadget and the entire 80's Mute Records roster was unleashed upon the world all at the same time. This is twisted post punk that resembles the very first experiments in synth pop that went horribly wrong but still sounded so revolutionary that they were mind numbing. Listening to I Cry When You Cry is like listening to an OMD outtakes reel from 1981 with some added sense of atonally just to give some flavor.

While all this might sound a bit discomforting and strange, it's nothing to be alarmed about, it's supposed to. This record is not your usual electro, synth pop fare that's made strictly for packing out a dance floor. Oh no, I Cry When You Cry is like a Radio Shack experimental kit in synthetic pop as put together by a 12 year old. Keyboards clang and strain for attention while horns, drum machines, and cold and calculating vocals stress everything out. It's a perfect fusion of post punk, synth pop, and a pack or mental Terminator's on the loose.

This sort of bizarre experimental electronic music might give some a headache, but for anyone excited by minimal beats, broken synthesizers, digi-punk, or anything kind of atonal, I Cry When You Cry will be one heck of an experience. The Bodies Obtained have taken the 80's and shattered it with a jack hammer and then pieced it back together with duct tape and I Cry When You Cry is what the resulting reconstruction work sounds like. Bizarre, un-melodic and unusual, I Cry When You Cry is an intriguing listen of synth pop gone wrong in all the right ways.