Thieves Like Us Hit Again and Again

Thieves Like Us are another one of those transcontinental, multi-national groups that have been around the block and around the world a few times. With members coming from Sweden and the States but living in London, Paris, and Milan these guys have just about seen and done it all. Originally famous for their huge Kitsune Records single, Drugs In My Body, the band has come a long way since their ode to heartache and substance abuse two years ago. In fact, their new album, Again and Againis one of the best retro-informed synth pop albums you are likely to hear this year.

Sounding something like an old Factory Records band meeting a series of old Creation Records dance records, Thieves Like Us have left their scenester loving days behind them for something more mature, developed, and all around better then their previous efforts. With a strong pop sensibility and enough old time sounding synths to make most of the New Wave movement seem inadequate, Thieves Like Us have pieced together a record decked out in enough Members Only and LA Gear to make you think it's 1984. Keeping in league with it's influences much of Again and Againis a foppy, slightly depressed effort that sounds like it really should talk to someone. With song titles such as, "Shyness," "Mercy," and "Silence," you might even think that Again and Againis a goth record in waiting; rest assured it is not, although there's enough darkness permeating the songs here to make you wonder if they've ever even heard of the sun.

As down and disheartening as all that sounds, there are happier moments to be found on the disc. "One Night With You," is all hopeful, glittery, and ready for the disco; it's a heady pop thrill that's awash in churning beats, a huge chorus and an overwhelming feeling that the song was written by the Pet Shop Boys. In other words, it's a hit waiting to happen and that's the great thing about Again and Again is that it perfectly balances the dark with the light and the pop with and without the depression. It's this admiration and adoration of all these classic sounds and how Thieves Like Us modernize it all with such great results that make them so good. Truth is, Again and Againis an implausibly fine synth pop record.

Far from a one hit wonder, Thieves Like Us have come a long way from putting drugs in their body. This is a band that has hunkered down, mastered the classics, studied their mentors and made an album that is packed with new classics in the making. Their retro-synth meets modern production approach hits you right between the ears making Again and Again quite simply is one of my favorite records so far this year.