Neon Indian’s debut, ‘Physic Chasms’, seemed to be the definite Chillwave record, consistently name-checked when discussing the hazy genre. But where Memory Tapes and Washed Out (fellow contemporary chillwavers) attempted to clean up their sound on release number two (and failed if truth be told) Neon Indian’s Alan Palamo has held tight to his production values. He also happens to have gone and written a set of analogue-overloading Pop songs that come across like a power-surge of electronic bliss. You are over-saturated with bleeping, beating and shimmering noise that can’t fail to win you over.

‘Hex Girlfriend’ fluctuates, bending the pitch, a mass of sound that somehow lets through Palamo’s vocal. You feel like you’ve been thrown between a mass of synth lines, yet they are in perfect synchronicity – or as perfect as the musician wants them anyhow.

‘Fallout’ opens like an epic Vangelis soundtrack from back in the 80s, then soon comes into land as a spaced-out pop track. Massive sounds spread across the pulsating key lines, as again the musician rides the waves with an understated performance.

It is hard to fault a record that overflows with synthetic perfection – this is retro-machinery turned to the max. ‘Halogen (I could be a shadow)’ is an analogue anthem, pumping drum machines, filtering sounds and over-exposed production making for a larger-than-life slice of music.

Moments like ‘Suns Irrupt’ bleeps and distorts as the whispered voice rapidly repeats the title; stopping the flow for a more jerky piece of scrappy electronica. The title track meanwhile has a throbbing low-end and feels like a melancholic Sci-fi scene – as cascading notes and bytes fill the final comedown.

Neon Indian has only improved on what made for such a unique prospect initially, and by surrounded himself with machinery he clearly loves (he even made his own analogue-synth lately) this is arguably one of the albums of the year. Old school keyboards never sounded so modern.

-Brian Bentner-