De Lux’s first album, Voyage, is proving a tough act to follow.
Their latest release, Generation, has all the trappings of the sophomore album: self-doubt, stripped-down instrumentation, and a meandering storyline. Throughout, band co-founders Sean Guerin and Isaac Franco lean heavily on their self-imposed limitations to build something worthwhile — something memorable — around throbbing bass riffs, catchy piano lines, and lyrics that alternate between throwaway lines and intense self-scrutiny.
As you might have guessed, the record’s first track, “LA Threshold,” is about life in Los Angeles. On the surface, it’s about being on the verge of something — the doorway, the cusp. I can’t help but think this is a double-entendre about either the pain threshold one must have to make it in Los Angeles or the threshold of success that one must pass to be cool there.
Strangely, De Lux is worried about being “not creative enough” to make the sentiment the song’s hook. There are other clues in lines like “I’m busy doing nothing / That’s something to me,” and there’s artifice behind this slacker mentality. But really, how much “nothing” can the band be doing if they’ve already got two good (arguably great) albums under their belt? How can they be doing nothing if they’re releasing albums, touring, writing, and recording in their spare time?
And yet, as the band muses on “Living in an Open Place,” “don’t think it’s easy, sitting down for most of our lives” is probably how most of this album got made. I picture the two of them in the studio (or a tiny apartment), plugging away at instruments, building the songs one layer at a time. But doesn’t that line relate to each of us — at least for those of us who work in offices, in front of screens for eight to 12 hours a day? Not to mention the fact that after work, we sit in cars, or on trains and busses, and fiddle with our phones—only to go home and watch HBO or Netflix on another screen.
And aren’t we all getting a bit tired of being online all the time? Isn’t there some pushback to put down the smartphone, close the laptop, and get outside? Tracks like “Oh Man the Future” explore this question. Like the best science-fiction, it is very much concerned with the now but also about events yet to come. “Social networking is replaced by social interaction,” De Lux sings.“Virtual reality becomes sub-reality.” Similarly, the band tosses out phrases like “Internet of Things” in an attempt to get us to put down our devices. Soon, the Internet will be embedded in thermostats, parking meters, and refrigerators anyway, right?
Generation as a whole, however, may best be summarized with a different line from the same catchy song: “Humans have evolved to have less hair, more brainpower, and weaker bodies / We become what we thought to be aliens. We realize that we are the aliens.”
The future is now, and this album is the soundtrack. I, for one, welcome our new dance-punk overlords.