Nilbymouth

With their second album, the Montreal trio Nilbymouth storms in with early ’90s popular techno with a swig of electro-pop. There’s a distinct air of the past to this album, which is a dangerous line to walk in general as it can mean the sound is either classic or passé. In this case it’s a little of both, but more of the former. The song "Suddenly Alive, Suddenly Dead” is a great example; it’s inflexible 4 by 4 rhythms and low, fluid and fuzzy bass hum makes me pine for the days when I was 14 and gleefully bouncing around my room to 2Unlimited. By using many fuzzed out low end lines, generic yet delightfully rigid and familiar drum sounds, and simple top note melodies at a danceable BPM, the group has managed to conjure up memory without flattening or stereotyping it. That is to their credit as it’s difficult to draw from the past without producing irrelevant music.