Friday 23 April 2010

Dekade - New Waves @ Breaking More Waves

Just a few days ago we wrote a blog entitled Whatever Happened To The Modern ? If you haven’t read it yet we suggest you do so. Because originally the piece was due to have a different ending, one which suggested that we had unearthed a band that sounded so similar to The Modern that we suspected that they were the same people, once again re-branded under a new guise of Dekade. Or rather we understand that to be fully correct we should be writing their name in the following way D E K A D E. Yet a little digging has confirmed that Dekade are most certainly not The Modern / Matinee Club under a new guise.

Dekade have had previous incarnations though. Until very recently they were called Nitevisions. A clip of one of their songs Fire generated some interest last autumn. You can hear it here. And if once you’ve clicked here on their Myspace you find that their sound is deliberately and obviously plagiarising 1982-84, then it may not shock you to learn that they are direct relatives of members of Duran Duran. Fact. It seems that musical styles run in the blood. Lets us not forget that one of Duran's greatest hits releases was also called Decade.

Dekade continue the growing trend for male synth pop acts that define themselves by a stern, sharp-cut, suited elegance. Their cascading haughty goth-pop gem Haunt You is forty percent Human League, twenty five percent Depeche Mode, twenty percent Gary Numan and fifteen percent The Editors Papillon. Or one hundred percent The Modern. In terms of visual colouring, if Hurts are the beige of new synthtopia and Mirrors the black, then Dekade are grey with sparkle added by the Xenopmania team. The band are currently sculpting their debut album with Flood and are making live appearances at next weeks Camden Crawl. If you are in London you can catch them there, where, as they recently tweeted, they will be ‘in pursuit of excellence in the modern pop arena.’

If the synth-pop bubble hasn’t burst yet, and if as a band Dekade can avoid being quite so self-referencing to the eighties, then they have a real possibility of finding themselves at the front end of the premier league keyboard queue.


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