Accelerator

The full-length debut of the songwriting team of Duncan Troast and Nick Corson as the Convenience, Accelerator harks back to 80s pop and new wave for its instrumentation palette. The pair met as music students at Loyola University in New Orleans, where the New Jersey and California natives stayed on, eventually joining the similarly inspired Video Age as keyboardist and bassist, respectively. The Convenience distinguish themselves with consciously bright surfaces and funkier, Prince-injected rhythmic tendencies, both apparent on songs like the opening track, Accelerator (Pts. I + II). After establishing its clap-on-two-and-four drum beat and 130-bpm pace, the song gets bass, guitar, and keys involved in its tag-team funk before whispery vocals enter with When you slide your body right up next to me/My heart beating faster, I can hardly breathe. The rest of the song brings listeners along on a high-speed car ride for two. A kaleidoscopic swirl of warped, twinkling synths, melodic guitar hooks, and synth bass follow on the even brisker Kiss Me in Heaven, and, later, True Fascination even opens with a vocal call for bass. The album offers up a change of pace on entries such as the more bittersweet 6/8 slow dance, The Flame -- replete with 80s-appropriate alto sax solo -- and glistening keyboard ballad ★, which mixes things up with a jazzy flute solo and acoustic strings. Despite shifts between caffeinated funk and Berlin-esque balladry, Accelerator sticks with a distinctive color scheme produced by the band with Video Ages Ross Farbe. ~ Marcy Donelson