Age of Consent

Heartbreak

Self-released

Released: Saturday 23 June 2012

Channeling Depeche Mode and Heaven 17 to create a whopping great 80s synth-pop pastiche, 'Heartbreak' is not bad but so completely lacking in anything even slightly approaching originality that it's hard not to hate it a bit. It's probably unfair to call Age of Consent lazy. After all, 'Heartbreak' has a decent tune, drama, crisp production, good synth sounds. It's a fuck sight more ambitious than anything your average guitar-wielding indie boy will ever fart out between pints of watery real ale.

And yet, none of that is enough because everything 'Heartbreak' consists of was all done first and best 20-odd years ago and then again and again, at increasingly regular intervals and with diminishing returns by artists who, in their slavish devotion to the originals, only serve to blunt them, making it tougher to discern their genius.

In the month in which Brother, sorry Viva Fucking Brother, reinvented themselves as slick-haired Glenn Gregory wannabes, really it is time for this 80s revival shit to just piss off. No more. Not in my name. Just say no. And yet... I've listened to it a few times and, taken on its own merits, 'Heartbreak' isn't that bad. In fact, it's quite good. OK? Happy? Bah!