QVALIA - This Is The Color Of My Dreams (Self-Released)

New York’s QVALIA, like their contemporaries CHVRCHES, share more than just a stylized namesake, taking cues from various post-punk groups, and even the album artwork seems a nod to The Cure or Echo and the Bunnymen. Their debut album, This Is The Color Of My Dreams, ambitiously explores the electronic soundscapes of the 80’s and merges it succinctly with a modern twist.

Instrumentally, the album is verging on masterful. It echoes of mid-80’s synthpop and post-punk, hybrids of guitars and synthesizers like New Order and The Cure. Vince Clarke would have been proud to lay claim to songs like “Breach” or “The Feel Of Not To Feel It.” The problem, however, is often when the vocals come in. It’s not that they’re necessarily bad; it’s just that neither the vocals nor lyrics seem to fit in with the music.

Occasionally the lyrics, as on “Sound the Alarm,” verge on the silly, bandying about some of the most obvious and famous lines in the history of poetry. There just seems to be a linear disconnect, as if the vocals are entirely modern and post-irony, but the instrumentals seems decades old. In this way, QVALIA are even more like their peers than previously thought, and it’s really just down to a matter of personal taste. There’s no denying there’s definitely a big audience out there for an album like This Is The Color Of My Dreams.