Modus - Retrace Your Steps
MODUS DROP DELICIOUSLY DREAMY ‘RETRACE YOUR STEPS’
Long Beach, California synth-pop outfit Modus dropped a new EP, entitled Retrace Your Steps, a few days ago.
Modus
According to their Bandcamp page, Modus is a “2-piece Synth Pop band from Long Beach comprised of Jon-Michael Lopez and Gustavo Miranda, influenced by Classic Rock guitar players, ‘80’s Synth Pop acts and Dream Pop from the early-mid ‘00's.”
And to paraphrase Porky Pig, that’s all there is, folks. Their Instagram and Facebook pages reveal nothing more. Googling them produces a few items about places they’ve played, but no background information at all.
Nevertheless, let it be known that their music is excellent.
Retrace Your Steps encompasses five tracks, starting off with “Point Of Reference,” which opens on swirling synth colors, followed by the addition of a cavernous tone akin to a bassline. The music escalates into a pulsing, driving rhythm topped by gleaming, shimmering colors exuding luminous textures, smooth and undulating. Deliciously tempered vocals glide on velvety surfaces, infusing the tune with dreamy, creamy tones.
“It's never the same since you left me / Remember where we failed to be / Start at the end, retrace your steps / Like me for now, confused of then / One favors more, the other less / Carried away, no reason to stay.”
Shadow-filled vocals imbue the lyrics with trembling opacity, cashmere yet round and richly flavored, like dark chocolate.
“I Know You’re Right” features La Troienne, and travels on gently fluctuating colors surging with glowing hues. Shadow-filled vocals imbue the lyrics with trembling opacity, cashmere yet round and richly flavored, like dark chocolate.
“Regret” rides dark glossy colors rife with resonant dynamics. The rhythmic pulse, fat and deep, provides the harmonics with tight thumping energy, as gossamer vocals slide above, like the lustrous dust of rumors.
“Daze” opens on industrial flavors, oscillating with mechanical momentum, and flows into long-waves of rippling thick savors topped by penetrating whispery tones backed by reflective harmonies.
“Shades of green fall into place / Your grays and blues all in a haze / You find yourself outside of the light / You find one self in the clearest of nights / Take me down, lost in your face / One last sound, we're lost in the daze / Lost in the daze.”
“Passing Through” moves on stuttering synths capped by glinting accents, as the potent rhythm pulsates underneath. Ethereal harmonies inject the music with spectral timbres, giving the tune a haunting sonic texture.
Retrace Your Steps is wonderfully wrought, full of radiant pigmentation, compelling rhythms, and tantalizing, elusively proximate vocals.
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