Future Future Future Perfect

Album Review

Gamers will immediately recognize the vicious Moog riff introducing Future Future Future Perfect as "the keytar song" featured in Guitar Hero 2. It's a jam that builds velocity until the notes are whizzing by in a flurry, leaving expert players out of breath and rubbing their blistered fingers. Freezepop have found their core audience, with songs appearing in five other games to date, and with the licensing revenue, the group members have saved up some cash for studio upgrades. As a digital-based trio, they have remained true to form, but instead of relying on the lone Yamaha QY70 keyboard and Mam vocoder that they used in 2000, they've collected a pile of synths — namely a Microkorg, two Nords, a Sidstation, and a vintage Alesis Andromeda — and upgraded their computer's recording interface with more professional hardware and software. All this is to say that Freezepop sound bigger and more polished than they did on their past releases. The vocals are still light and cutesy, performed in the same lackadaisical manner as the Blow, and sung almost as if Liz Enthusiasm were making up the words as she goes. She performs unenthusiastically (despite what her last name may imply), almost as if she didn't have time to prepare for a speech, and now she's ad-libbing her way through it with words that she jotted down on a cocktail napkin. This apathetic performance style, mixed with a subtle dash of sarcasm, removes any hint of pretension from the songs, which is what makes for a winning formula. It's not as heavy as Daft Punk, or even LCD Soundsystem, but Future Future Future Perfect would make for a great record to get a hipster basement party moving and shaking, complete with references to musty stenches and a keg of Pabst Blue Ribbon. The combination of bombastic beats laced with keyboard arpeggios and sweet vocals drenched in irony makes for a fun retro-influenced electro mix that never takes itself too seriously. The whimsy is especially evident on a song like "Do You Like My Wang" or "Pop Music Is Not a Crime," when Enthusiasm unenthusiastically belittles her rhymes as being stupid and apologizes about her lyrical content. "It's just that I really like to dance/I guess that it seems trite/Would you dance to a song about dancing/Guilty pleasures feel so right." It's not groundbreaking, it's not brilliant, and it's certainly not deep, but like a Playstation 2 game, this is relatively mindless entertainment that's addictive and a lot of fun, even if they are guilty-pleasure dance songs.