The Department – Alpha (CD Album – Hard Cell Records)

Genre/Influences: Synth-pop.

Content: We welcome a new band and a new label. The Department has been set up by singer Rob Green (England) and Magnus Lindström (Sweden). It all started back in 2012 and it took 2 years for this duo to achieve their debut work “Alpha”.

The sound of The Department is clearly inspired by some legendary 80s electro artists. Some of the vocal parts remind me of Heaven 17 while sound-wise it evokes good souvenirs from bands like Blancmange, Fad Gadget, The Human League and Depeche Mode. The music is clearly electro-pop minded and the vintage touch running through the songs is absolutely gorgeous.

“Alpha” impressed me for its maturity and great sound research. The songs reveal minimal electro bleeps, alluring bass lines, great studio effects and moody passages. It’s a real lust for the ears to discover this pure synthetic music carried by captivating vocals. It maybe all is a bit of a coincidence, but there’s a cool mix of good-old British electro-pop and the Swedish synth-pop school.

The Department avoids any kind of innovation, but simply composes synth-pop music with attitude. The old-school style is danceable and fully accomplished so in the end we get all ingredients to speak about a successful debut work. There are several attention grabbers featured on “Alpha” and “Slow Down” is the absolute potential ‘hit’.

Notice by the way that the CD has been released as a flashy digipak format.

Conclusion: The Department is an excellent surprise injecting a fresh –although vintage like, touch to the wide fields of electro-pop music. This is an album to discover and a band to keep in mind!

Best songs: “Slow Down”, “Take My Hand”, “Glass Houses”, “Come Inside”, “The Waiting Room”.

Rate: (DP:8)DP.

Band: www.thedepartment-official.com / www.facebook.com/departmentthe

Label: www.facebook.com/hardcellrecords

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