CUT COPY
In Ghost Colours
MOD103CD
Modular 2008
15 Tacks. 50mins54secs

Four years have passed since Melbourne quartet Cut Copy released their debut album, Bright Like Neon Love, and the heavily eighties influenced sound the band have championed from as far back as 2001, has almost become vintage in its own right, and has even been badly trampled over by the New Rave craze that briefly blew a tepid breeze last year.

Formed in early 2001 in Melbourne, Australia, by Dan Whitford, who was later joined by additional musicians Bennett Foddy. Mitchell Scott and Tim Hoey, Cut Copy were rapidly signed to Modular, home of The Avalanches, Klaxons, New Young Pony Club and Soulwax to name but a few. Having delivered a number of EPs between 2001 and 2003, the band released their debut album the following year, followed by a contribution to the ever expending FabricLive series in 2006.

Fast-forward to 2008, and the next chapter in the Cut Copy story. Recorded with DFA producer Tim Goldsworthy, who invited the band to make good use of the facilities of the label’s Plantain Studio in New York, In Ghost Colours is a much more confident and consistent affair, which alternates strong pop songs and short instrumental interludes. References to OMD and even more so New Order (Peter Hook might has well be credited for at least half the tracks) are unavoidable, but this is a testament to how the band’s sound has moved on from the timid escapades of Neon Love. Where this album was a bit too clean and well behaved and seemed to lack direction a tad, In Ghost Colours is flamboyant, colourful and above all annoyingly catchy. Right from opening songs Feel The Love and Out There On The Ice, Cut Copy deliver hook after hook after hook and barely seem to take any time to catch their breath in between.

Recent single Lights & Music, with its hands in the air chorus and underlying gritty synth, is a fine example of the pop/dance combo that Cut Copy have developed for this album, but it is in now way the strongest song on here. So Haunted, Hearts On Fire and the cool as ice Far Away, all strategically placed pretty much at the heart of the album, are quite simply magnificent, while the summery Strangers In The Wind, a track reminiscent of Alpinestars’ Burning Up Again, casts a more subtle yet equally as effective, light over the band’s new sound.

Cut Copy apprently arrived in New York with a bunch of ideas for songs which were fleshed up during lengthy recording sessions during which the band experimented with various combinations, set ups and instruments. This ad hoc and joyous approach certainly comes shining through from beginning to end. The ‘New Order’ shadow that hangs over the whole album could have been, if applied to weaker songs, a real nuisance. Fortunately, Cut Copy have collected an almost faultless collection and delivered a brilliant cross over album which is likely to please old fans and bring the band legions of new ones. Watch out, Cut Copy will  have you dance all summer and will be all over 2008 like a rash!

4.6/5

Cut Copy | Modular
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