Vision Talk - Distances

Vision Talk is finally here with their new album 'Distances'. Even though it's still synthpop and it's surely cute, it feels more grown up than 'Elevation' ever was. The Italo-disco is more or less gone and to say that they have taken a darker approach would probably be an overstatement, but most definitely taken a step towards the more well-known Scandinavian synthpop elements we all know and love.

The production is better and the song structure is cleaner, even the vocals are growing on me. Nevertheless, what I am about to write is probably illegal in 42 states and I don't want to be a cock (not all the time at least), but Vision Talk's backup singer Karin is their strongest card they can play out in their musical game of poker. The fifth track "The Machine" where Karin is singing the main vocals is the strongest track by far on this album. I simply love the track and here all the bits and pieces fall together and create pure art. This is where all the happy melodies and great pop vocals all go to synchronize.

However, to simply highlight one track in this ten track piece would be notoriously stupid by me, because there are more goodies to find. All members of the band deserve some kudos, because it seems like they all raised the bar a couple of inches, especially on the musical part of it, where the melodies are better than ever. Check out "The Zone of Silence", "Safe and Sound", "Infrared Love" and "MJ-12". All great tracks.

This album is one of the hardest ones to rate this year so far. I want to give it a 7.5, but since we don?t deal with .5 (and I slap every single one of my reviewers suggesting it), I have to settle with giving it a very, very strong 7.

Vision Talk has made a good synthpop album and they've grown from completely uninteresting to highly interesting in my book. They still have some focus areas they need to put some effort in, but I'm glad they decided to carry on their work and Conzoom Records made a good decision. Jun 08 2011