Danceable chaos on record is often the result of a reclusive in a studio far, far away, which is all too familiar to anyone who has ever picked up an album by Nine Inch Nails. In the case of Danish pop outfit The Asteroids Galaxy Tour — vocalist Mette Lindberg and producer Lars Iverson — delusions of grandeur became illusions of digital magic and multi-instrumentalists. Their sophomore effort, Out Of Frequency, is an otherworldly fantasy where disco isn’t dead, chipmunks evolved from Adele or the Dee-Lites, and an iPod Touch is your gateway drug to euphoria.
Film noir meets The Fifth Element (“Cloak and Dagger”), Chicago blues does ‘shrooms (“Gold Rush, Pts. I & II”), and Algernon’s pitched up cry of insanity pleads (“Ghost In My Head”). All the while, things tend to vaguely resemble MIA’s former world music glory prior to her faux genocide of gingers (“Out of Frequency”, “Heart Attack”, “Suburban Space Invader”).
This is one of many foreign acts in the last decade who have achieved minor amounts of fame in the States thanks to commercials and YouTube. Regardless of its origins or whereabouts, people gleefully consume such candy-coated nightmare fuel, perhaps hoping cats will start dressing in breakfast pastries and shitting rainbows. The Asteroids Galaxy Tour will likely never shake novelty from its mane, instead resting in the annals quietly reserved for “Music Is My Hot, Hot Sex”, still echoing with delectable awesomeness. Getting it cleansed from your eerie imagination will require massive amounts of Speyside.
If you only know that term from a Jimmy Eat World track, then you know the staying power of random pop thingies penetrating your brain. You’ve been warned.
Essential Tracks: “Out of Frequency”, “Suburban Space Invader”, and “Cloak and Dagger”
