the 1981 - Polaroids EP (2022) Hi-Res

After the critical acclaim afforded the recent release of Windowpane by Aluminium, the Dandy Boy Records cassette label continue their run of post-punk meets jangle form with this third EP a The 1981 band they have been collaborating with since 2019.
At it’s most decidedly post-punk, the daunting claustophobia of the early 1980s drives straight towards your heart. Mona Lisa has that intesnse droning/jangle mix and incessant rhythms of A Certain Ratio, Editors or modern acts such as RGV / DIIV.
Similarly, Summer Games and Boomerang offer cloying, intense confinement via the sense of epic windswept and synthwave respectively. Both are tracks that take you straight back to the mid 1980s, when half the young were dressing up as extras from the Munsters or Victorian Prosititutes. These tracks are dank, jangly diatribes, made perfectly glorious in the hands of this act, by deiberated attention to faux melody.
Despite the brilliance of the above, the best of the Polaroids is completely apposite in aural texture. Here, Easy (It’s Not) and the simply sublime Nelson’s Camera, drift towards a mixture of the latter era chiming jangle of The Chills juxtaposed with the melodic fuzz of the Hanemoon / Carriers vibe. With the dank replaced by a fuzz pop laden dulcet, this is The 1981 at their most precious.
Potentially the flagship act for a label that is in serious form of late, this EP sees this act definitively come of age.