Lust for Youth – Lust for Youth
Lust for Youth continue their shift into the light with a gorgeous set of synth-pop tunes on their new self-titled album
Having made their name with a grainy vein of subterranean synth harshness Lust for Youth have slowly been shifting towards the world of big choruses and hope, something they did spectacularly on 2016’s Compassion, and here solidify that move with an excellent album of surging melancholy.
Early New Order remain a clearly enormous influence, not just in their cavernous use of echo but in their absolute dedication to recreating the ache of yearning. Lust for Youth have in recent years been at their best operating in this space, the difficult meeting point between pain and queasy optimism, and still maintain a spectacular gift for squeezing this specific emotion out of individual sounds. The gently clanging guitar riff on Great Concerns, the momentous little run throughout By No Means, the whirling squeak in Fifth Terrace’s chorus all bleed a specific melancholy that little can measure up to.
They are still by no means a group you could ever accuse of eclecticism, every track does basically exist within this certain sonic palette, but it’s their gift for crafting tunes that stops it melting into a directionless melancholy mulch. Adrift gradually gives and takes its momentum, progressing from a twitchy bop into a Born Slippy-esque trance batterer whilst Great Concerns and By No Means show their ever-increasing capacity for massive choruses. Fifth Terrace, the albums high point, is the absolute coalescence of all their gifts into a gorgeous sweep of optimistic aching.
Lust for Youth may not have made any personal great leap forward with this album, but it remains a set of glorious synth-pop gems, with an aching heart at their centre that most can only dream of.
Listen to: Fifth Terrace, Adrift, By No Means