John Lagos, the man behind Brothertiger, hasn’t given me an easy job. To make it harder for myself, I’m excluding these words from the following review: ‘Chillwave’, ‘nostalgia’, ‘gaze’, and finally, ‘haze’. Oh, and the phrase ‘soundtrack to your summer’.
The name ‘Brothertiger’ is a portmanteau, a combination of two words to make one new one, and in this case, a combination of human and animal elements. It sounds like a man to me though. I wonder what it would sound like if a goat did the singing. That would be interesting. Like that video mash up with Usher and ‘the goat that sounds like a man’. Sorry, I got carried away. Back to the album. Golden Years starts with the sound of children’s voices, clichéd indeed, but setting the tone for the album nonetheless. Then the synths arrive. The synths arrive. Oh boy have the synths arrived. They aren’t going anywhere. The synths are staying put. For the whole length of the record. All of it.
Oh and here are the vocals.
“Hey vocals, long time no see. When was the last time? Teen Daze? Blackbird Blackbird? Good to see you again though man.”
“Synths, meet vocals... vocals, meet synths”.
“Good, now you’ve met, let’s continue. Hey there, don’t get too intimate, you’ve only just met! Hey! Don’t be so flirty synths. Stop it. Stop it. I got distracted again. Back to the album.”
Golden Years is a collection of upbeat pop songs that float and flitter. The best of these being ‘Lovers’, a song that stands out like a sore thumb amongst the rest with its cut and paste vocals and infectious synth hook that strongly recalls Passion Pit’s debut Manners. I wonder where Passion Pit have got to... they were quite good whilst they were around. Wasn’t the singer Greek? I think he might have been. I wonder what will happen to Greece. They don’t look like they’re in a very comfortable position right now. Certainly not in their ‘Golden Years’...
6/10
William Hall
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