Super Bright Skullz is the new EP from Provo based electropop duo Forest World. This is clearly music to dance with. The bass knocks hard, with kinetic snares that punctuate hi-hats and cowbells. Drawn out background synths hold the feeling while melodic arpeggios bounce in around the drums, amid errant 8-bit accents. The songs build up and release with extended breakdowns that riff off all the elements and create the sense of a live mix. Throughout the EP you hear all of the sounds interact in different ways that continuously re-frame the overall feeling. Both lo-fi and clean tones keep the vibe crispity crunchety in your ears. Sean and Sam share the vocals in a pleasant male/female harmony that gives a sense of dialogue to the lyrics, which seem to be heartfelt glimpses of hope and connection in the modern mundane. I love the refrain from the title track, "all of this is just as real as you can make it," spun through a dance floor crusher that I will be stoked to experience live. The track that challenged me most was 'Jodie Jensen' which is apparently an ode to a high school crush and thrusts a grip of awkward romantic attachment over a sparse beat that takes two minutes to come back from its initial despair. It does come back though, and they follow it with 'The Singularity' which is also low-key but draws me in with its story about living to age 100, only to be alone with nothing but the songs written in your youth. Overall the lyrics are emotional and real, but not overbearing, and never empty, even when distanced through distortion. This is perfect music for sweaty basement dancing, solo city cycling or making out in a car on the side of an empty mountain road.
Listen to most of the tracks at myspace.com/forestworld
or go ahead and get the hand-packaged cd at forestworldblog.blogspot.com (download is available as well)
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