STandART

Australia

Mark Nox

I'm looking through the cover of the album by Latvian project Standard, the band recognized in Poland almost solely by DM community. The inset consists of many photos ( interesting session on the beach) and of the lyrics. I was quite positively surprised that the first page features the text in Latvian – I always feel fine when I see the band have added pieces in their mother language on the releases intended for the western market.
Curiosity-driven I put the CD in the recorder.

The first, English-language piece (Seven Times) turned out to be the most dynamic on the whole album.
The background for vocal - characteristic for synthpop – is gentle, drum beat. the vocalist sing clearly and does well with English (bravo for that; you rarely come across Eastern Europe vocalist who would in fact do that!)
After having listened to the second piece (Ka Citi Dzivo) I understood that singing in the language of the Greatest Colonial superpower and his own is equally easy for him. To make it even better the sixth track – Fernfahrertraum - is in German (well done here, too). Just those three make me wholeheartedly recommend you Latvian language schools – unfortunately the band did not give any addresses...;o(

Back to the music – the fascination with Mesh and De/Vision is easily recognizable; literally any piece features pop rock guitars, and , adds nothing new to the modern music... but does synthpop have to be innovatory? The album is like a heritage park of everything you love in the genre; treat it like a sentimental journey.

I'd like to pay your attention to two pieces : “Winterize” – short, instrumental one, but craftily arranged and shrouded and “The Wonderful Fair” : speeding composition featuring captivating electronic samples and – especially at the end – rich in raw, metallic sounds.

What the album lacks are remixes, of., for example, such pieces like Seven Times or The Wonderful Fair which would help the band win the western market. Anyway, I keep my fingers crossed!