Dead Years Night Thoughts LP
There seems to be no shortage of coldwave/post-punk/deathrock bands at the moment, and frankly, I love it. Go ahead and add Germany’s DEAD YEARS to the list. On Night Thoughts, they play a cool brand of post-punk, sometimes reminding me of a more propulsive HOME FRONT and sometimes reminding me of an Oi! band minus the saxophones and tough-guy gang vocals. Speaking of, the dual vocals are a nice touch and add some depth and nuance to the proceedings. I will say, the record is a little long for my taste, and some of the tunes do blend together about halfway through. This is no dealbreaker; in fact, it’s probably just my social-media-addled attention span that’s the problem. Anyways, the songwriting is solid, and on tracks like “Into the Dark” and “Mind Circle,” DEAD YEARS really take off.