Retro synth pop is a style that, for reasons unknown, has never really went out of style, yet it is also a style that, despite its robotic simplicity, is distinctly hard to render memorable with melody usually the first casualty of the assault of the sequencer. What, therefore, can Austrian band C-60 (Claus Prellinger, Günter Klinger and Julian Prellinger) bring to yesterday’s party with their album “Fröhlich und Unverwüstlich” and is this the kind of album that is as cheerful and indestructible as its title would suggest?
Remarkably in these generally dull and dark days, the immediately noticeable thing about this album is a pronounced sense of fun and that, with a generous helping of lyrical irony, pervades all the songs as if the entire endeavour was actually the result of some post night club experimentation in the realm of the senses. It is therefore no surprise that you can’t help but smile all the way through the manic looped and robotically ranted “Tick Tack” and, likewise, the glorious combination of percussion loops and a simplistic recitation turns “White Sugar White Trash” into something that is as close to a musical happy pill as you will likely get these days.
By utilising the very limitations of synth pop as more of a challenge than a barrier, C-60 have sidestepped the verisimilitude that curses so many of their contemporaries into mediocrity and, as a result, their album “Fröhlich und Unverwüstlich” easily escapes the prison of the headphones to become the hypnotic soundtrack to our post-midnight urban existence. Simply splendid and, without a doubt, cheerfully indestructible.