Sweden's
Holograms
play to the greyer elements of their Scandinavian surroundings on their self-titled debut, but also channel the industrial desolation of the early
Factory Records
sound and merge it with the experimental energy of 2010s garage punk. When the jagged drums and scrappy, driving bassline of opening track "Monolith" kick in, the band sounds so much like
Joy Division
it's almost criminal. The song draws on the influence of several icy
Factory
bands as it goes on, hinting at elements of
Crispy Ambulance
and
Section 25
as well as the early post-punk energy of
Warsaw
-era
. This kind of by-the-numbers derivation would make for a pretty forgettable album, but
avoid coming off like a tribute band through some unpredictable sonic shifts and a general strangeness that shows up on most of the songs. Without any of the sleaze, swagger, or guitar solos typical of
Black Lips
/
Thee Oh Sees
-style garage rock, the band picks up on the random psychedelic experimentation and frenetic energy of that scene. The melodically punky "Chasing My Mind" finds singer/bassist
Andreas Lagerstroem
's vocals doused in a brittle phase effect and arcs with an incomprehensibly busy keyboard/drum breakdown that seems bizarrely implanted.
Filip Spetze
's cold synthesizer tones add dimension to raw punk blasts like "Transform" and "Stress," and echoey production touches keep these more bombastic tunes from becoming redundant or boring. Much like contemporaries like
Iceage
or
Eddy Current Suppression Ring
,
have wholeheartedly embraced '80s post-punk icons like
Wire
or the
stable as jumping-off points, but managed to twist the influence into something more interesting than simple homage. By the time the chanting chorus of the incredibly hooky "ABC City" takes hold, the energy of the song starts to outshine its incredibly strong similarity to a
song or two, and the affectation just becomes another part of a fantastically conceived song. ~ Fred Thomas