Life, as Forrest Gump once astutely observed, is like a box of chocolates; you never know what you are going to get. Well, if that is the case, then Replaced by Robots is the sonic equivalent. If “Since You Broke My Ouija Board” grooved with a ’50s vibe run through a raw pop filter and “Laboratory” felt like B-52’s taking their music to its (il)logical conclusion, this time out, we get something different again.
“The Ocean” is both lush and nostalgic, powerful yet sophisticated, a dream-pop groover with an alt-rock heart, rich and rewarding music shot through with siren guitars and resonant sonics. And Heather Joy Morgan’s vocals are the icing on the cake, moulding and matching the rise and fall of the music behind her, moving from understated singing to spoken-word asides to howling at the moon, as required.
But despite all the madness and unpredictability that runs through Replaced by Robots’ sonic world, they weave those extremes and energies, tangents and grooves into some of the most interesting music of the moment. Sure, you wouldn’t want to try to label the music or tag the band regarding genre or style, but when has that ever helped anyway?
No, it is not a sound that unites their music but a spirit – one of adventure, experimentation, and exploration, one that doesn’t just hop genres but crashes them to the ground and then uses the fractured shards found scattered all over the musical landscape in their wake to create something new and brilliant.
When did anything interesting happen in comfort zones? When did predictability ever trump the joy of surprise?
