The Mobile Homes – Tristesse
The Mobile Homes – Tristesse
Wild Kingdom Records
Release Date: 22/09/23
Running Time: 40:10
Review by Dark Juan
9/10
I don’t know why I am like this. You would think, considering that in the world of work I hold a position of some responsibility, that I would be able to you know, fucking arrange my time so I have a schedule for things of importance. However, as soon as I get home from my employment, I turn into a fucking dribbling vegetable on the sofa and my intelligence deserts me, leaving me incapable of doing anything useful for at least the first day of being off duty. This is vexing when you are a music journalist and critic, and your review list is extensive and wide ranging, and you have deadlines that you have missed because your head is in bits from lack of sleep and hacking your lungs up for nearly two weeks because of a new and exciting variant of COVID-19 that has squeezed all the oxygen out of my blood. Oh, and buggering off on holiday to do The Wicker Man Trail in Scotland. My liver has not yet recovered. The single malt whisky was medicinal, OK?
I can only apologise to The Mobile Homes for not getting to them sooner. Dark Juan is a bit of a twat and no mistake, in this case. Well, all the time really, but especially now.
Let us activate the heavily made up and poncho-wearing Platter Of Splatter™ and have a listen to “Tristesse”, being the latest release by Swedish masters of melancholic Synthpop, The Mobile Homes.
Let me just point out that if you are looking for joy and thrills, you are not going to find it with The Mobile Homes and you should probably look elsewhere. Ditto if you are looking for pure Metal. No chance with this band, mate. However, if you are a more intrepid listener, please do read on because there will hopefully be something of interest for you at some point during these ramblings.
The Mobile Homes have been around since 1984, and in Dark Juan’s opinion this shows with their sound, being entirely synth-based, yet played with an assurance that absolutely kicks you in your face repeatedly. This is the sound of a band who are so immersed in their sound, even their snoring is musical. The Mobile Homes sound like Spandau Ballet and Duran Duran got off with The Cure in a back alley while Kraftwerk and Ladytron filmed the whole filthy escapade while frotting against Visage and the Pet Shop Boys. All clove cigarettes, alabaster-white faces, and scarlet painted lips.
That’s just the boys.
Fucking hell, that’s a powerful mental image Dark Juan won’t be getting rid of in a hurry. That’s actually faintly disturbing. I think I need therapy.
The album opens with ‘Wedding Night’, which is a gloriously rich tapestry of intertwining synth sounds on an instrumental piece which is a most worthy introduction to the melancholic aural universe of The Mobile Homes – picture the humanism and Futurepop sensibilities of VNV Nation (‘That Familiar Place’) and the bizarre makeup and appearance of the whole New Romantic scene (‘Some Days’, ‘Throne’) and the sardonic humour of The Damned at their most Gothic (‘Inferior’) and you get a sense of what The Mobile Homes sound like. It’s kind of like the antithesis of Synthwave – it’s still electronic music, but it doesn’t have the rosy-tinted look back to the neon-tinged world of what the imagined future was back in the 80s and 90s. It doesn’t hark back to the days of action heroes with arms thicker than my torso and automatic weapons which never appeared to run out of ammunition. The music of The Mobile Homes is contemporary, dragging the music of times past into the now where it sits, blinking in the light of banks of solar-powered LEDs. The music is swoopy and sad and yet strangely uplifting at the same time. It defies easy description, which is a bit of a bitch when your actual job is to fucking describe it.
Lead singer Hans Erkendal sounds like an amalgamation of Neil Tennant, Steve Strange, Dave Vanian and whichever fucking Kemp brother sang in Spandau Ballet and the music on “Tristesse” ranges from the most heartbroken of slow synthetic emotion through to almost cheerful Pop bounciness, but there is a definite running theme of melancholy running through the lyrics and music of the whole album, minor keys and words that sound like they ache to sing.
The record is absolutely crystal clear in its production. Every single little flourish, every intertwining synth line, every vocal, be it lead vocals or backing, every percussive hit is artfully catered for and the whole sound is a very complete ensemble. Dark Juan will even go as far as to say that it is perfect for the melancholic Synthpop he is listening to.
I know I am not describing an album to you that has anything at all to do with Metal and frankly I don’t care, because music, when it is this good, deserves to be heard and written about, and let’s face it, loads of us Defenders of The Faith like other stuff besides just Metal, don’t we? Some of us like K-Pop, J-Pop (I will not say anything about Babymetal. Oh no, I might upset somebody), Synthwave, Industrial and Synthpop as well and that is fucking FINE as far as I am concerned. I personally know a Hardcore guitarist in a UK band who is a fucking massive Van Der Graaf Generator fan. There is too much outstanding stuff out there to limit yourself.
This is an amazing record to listen to if you know your music. If you are not that savvy about music it could be a little confusing as it does have quite a retro-Pop sound that has been dragged into modern times, but even then it is absolutely worth a punt. Dark Juan fucking loves it!
The Patented Dark Juan Blood Splat Rating System (Det patenterade Dark Juan-systemet för blodstänk för eventuella svenska läsare jag kan ha skaffat mig) awards The Mobile Homes 9/10 for a truly great album. One mark has been deducted from their score by the arbitrary rule that Dark Juan has about non-Metal releases being written about on a Metal website.
TRACKLISTING:
01. WEDDING NIGHT
02. SOME DAYS
03. THRONE
04. IN MEMORIAM NO ONE
05. IF YOU ASK ME
06. THE LAST THIRD
07. CENTURIES
08. CONCLUSION
09. THAT FAMILIAR PLACE
10. INFERIOR
CD bonus track:
11. WHEN EVERYTHING IS ALRIGHT
LINE-UP:
Patrik Brun – Synth
Andreas Brun – Synth, Vocals
Hans Erkendal – Vocals
Sami Sirviö – Synth, Vocals
Markus Mustonen – Synth, Vocals
LINKS:
Disclaimer: This review is solely the property of Dark Juan and Ever Metal. It is strictly forbidden to copy any part of this review, unless you have the strict permission of both parties. Failure to adhere to this will be treated as plagiarism and will be reported to the relevant authorities.
