Double Echo "☾"

 ☾, the fifth full length studio album by Liverpool and New York-based band Double Echo on Fabrika Records in 2021, requires no words. Only a simple crescent moon symbol is necessary, a bright entity in the night sky to illustrate its contents. Members Ash Lerczak, Chris Luna and Ellon Souter approach the new album with a pure pop mentality littered with dark undertones. It is synthpop sweetness with an edge, a glittering dream of neons and city lights... but not without the foreboding sense of danger ahead.

After the success of their single "The Bairn"—a song worthy of Anne Clark's rhythmic lacerations—☾ is an extension of that same mood of 1980s pop music with a pout, sullen but sure in its delivery. The ten tracks are primed for the clubs, reminiscent of the chilly and eerie melodies of Numan and Sharpe, or the synthpop accessibility of Celebrate the Nun or, further, new wave darlings Thompson Twins. However, post-punk guitars peek in at times to add a dismal atmosphere, much like their previous LP releases. Double Echo have morphed into what they were meant to be: music on the fringes of a passing storm, the cool colors of dawn.

Even though it's easy to compare Double Echo to the heroic synth-based music of yesteryear, the LP is a rousing reinterpretation of it, as proven in "Cruelty in Your Heart." With the use of unsuspecting pan flute synth sounds, Double Echo concocts a new form of synthpop that is far from tacky. The balance between guitars alongside bell and synth pads harken to the harmony achieved in instrumentation with mid-80s darkwave acts, and each track is as addictive as the next.