AMBER SMITH - Introspective

Hungary's Amber Smith return two years after the delightful "rePRINT", and theirs is a confirmation not without surprises. A melancholy existential reckoning in the form of a sparkling, nostalgic notebook of perfect pop songs, "Introspective" shows off the Budapest quartet's gift for songcraft and, compared to the previous album, which was dominated and illuminated solely by interweaving guitars, injects the band's melodic formula with a hefty dose of synth influences.

To sum up: rhythms and structures that become far more relaxed and even more easy-going, under the banner of a fresh, refined pop sound steeped in a more or less recent past, sincere because utterly free of "posturing". There are the noble, and the less noble, standard-bearers of "new romantic" watching over the sweet, resigned "Welcome To CIA"; there are new-wavers torn between the neuroses of their early days and the composed elegance of maturity driving tracks like the elegant "My Final Plea", the title track "Introspective" itself – perhaps the least immediate piece on the record, and among the most successful – or "Brazil", which even allows itself blatant homages to Japan.

But above all, there are the perfect pop songs mentioned above; the ones the band shows a clear predilection for, one that on the previous record was still masked by dreamlike arrangements. Here it triumphs in songs that would lack nothing (aside from the right hype, or perhaps the right nationality) to work as singles: there's "1980", a genuine manifesto of artistic, lyrical and musical intent from singer and leader Imre Poniklo; there's the fantastic "Coded", which actually is a single (as is the title track), but one we'll hardly see achieve the success it deserves. And then "Simon Says", "Select All/Delete All", easy, frivolous, shameless. There's even an instrumental, "Hectic", which in the midst of 2008 feels no shame at all in paying tribute to early Roxy Music.

All in a record that moves forward swiftly and gracefully, without hitches or hesitation (or almost: we could have done without "Treading Water"), perhaps a bit disorienting for those who loved the enchanted guitar-pop of the band's previous work. But here too, as then, the end result is never less than captivating, thanks to songs that never let the weight of nostalgia—or any other "critical" nitpicking—show. Songs that are often less simple than they appear, songs capable of being listened to endlessly with undiminished pleasure every time. Call that a small thing if you like.

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07/03/2008