Lastlings - First Contact
Dance – Released November 20, 2020 – 12 songs, 46 mins
ROZ’s album drop
For my July pick I’m going to travel back to a (not so) distant land, a music scene that the three of us have gotten to know quite well. This duo has been coming up in the Australian electronic music scene and have toured multiple times (as well as internationally) with a personal favourite of mine, Rufus du Sol. With a similar signature sound combined with their own pop twist, I’ve been excited to dig deep into the high energy debut studio album from these guys. My album review pick Lastlings – First Contact.
ROZ
Electronic music has always been my favorite genre. While my music tastes have very much evolved over my lifetime - from heavy metal in junior high, to regular rock in high school, to hip-hop in college and finally to alt rock and EDM as life took its course - electronic music to this day has stayed firmly on top of my (ever evolving) list.
Lastlings (Amy and Josh Dowdle) are a brother/sister electronic-pop duo from Queensland Australia. They've been on tour all over their home country and have done North American tours that have hit big festivals (including Coachella) with the likes of Two Door Cinema Club and Rufus Du Sol. First Contact is their debut studio album and I just have to say, it has damn near everything that I look for when it comes to the genre. Fantastic melodies, Warm analog leads and pads, crunchy bass synths, hard hitting kicks, snappy snares and groovy hi hats - it has it all. Amy’s voice has an ethereal quality to it that only gets accentuated by the heavy processing and effects used throughout the tracklist (the echo and reverb effect are dialed up to 11, just the way I like it). The various instrument arrangements throughout each song act as ear candy that compliment the main elements of each song nicely. All of the melodies seem carefully crafted; with every song sounding similar but yet also keeping a sense of uniqueness.
So yeah, as far as electronic pop goes? this is way up there. I could draw a bunch of parallels between Lastlings and Rufus Du Sol, who happen to be my absolute favorite band in the electronic pop/alt dance genre. Now, do I believe that Lastlings are heavily influenced by Rufus? Yes. Is that a bad thing? At this level of quality? Not at all - imitation is the sincerest form of flattery, after all. Besides, every single band in existence is influenced by (or doing their own personal homage) to their favourite bands as well, that's just how music is. I recently read that the rough demo's of First Contact were done by the duo in their home studio before moving to a professional studio environment and giving it that extra polish and pop in order to create the sound that First Contact has. Were members of Rufus sitting in on these? I have a hunch that they were but who am I to say? All I will say is that clearly they have the band's blessing considering they've gone on tours together.
Deja Vu sets the tone with it's warm analog swells, hard hitting bass synths and airy brass tones that make it sound like something out of a sci-fi movie set in the Year 3000. Take My Hand comes along with an absolutely incredible chorus and vocal hook which itself is a layer on top of a bed of crunchy saw waves and square waves (I need to find out what kind of synthesizers they're using because they sound amazing). False Reactions has my favorite melody and hook on the entire tracklist, and I've Got You closes the entire experience with (yet another) absolute killer dancefloor melter. You know what? Just do yourself a favor and watch the video I linked on the bottom of my review, you won’t be disappointed. I stumbled upon this show last year during one of the many live concert streams I'd watch late at night on my couch with a pint of beer and the TV volume on 100 - they absolutely blew me away with that performance, and now you can watch it too. Great work guys, I can't wait to hear the next album.
Overall Rating: 9.0/10
Favorite Song: False Reactions
REID
This week in TSR world, we meet the electronic, sibling duo, Lastlings, from the land down under. No surprise the band came from DJ Illz himself, Roz Rozwell. He and our pal, Url, have their own duo currently creating music; check them out on your preferred streaming service. They go by the name DŒUX and their most recent song, Whiskey Waters, is a jam. How cool is it Josh and Amy Dowdle grew up together sharing a passion for music that ultimately blossomed into an act successful enough to open for the amazing RUFUS DU SOL? They followed it up with their first full length album, First Contact and all signs point to an upward trajectory to stardom.
Roz dropped this album recommendation on us earlier this year and I loved Déjà Vu from it’s first car play. That bass line pop sucked me in. Amy’s voice is incredible and it mixes brilliantly with the synth-pop licks. The build ups progress slow and subtlety but pay off just about every time. The lyrics range from clever to sexy, including this excerpt from False Reactions:
A part of you,
Is bringing out something in me.
It’s all for you, so please,
Stay a while with me.
Not just the lyrics, her delivery. Swoooon.
First Contact keeps me intrigued for the full 47 minutes. The dark pop vibes throughout make me feel like I’m travelling through outer space or the upside down world in Stranger Things. Other standout tracks are Last Breath, No Time and Visions. Fingers crossed they play before Rufus as the sun sets at Coachella 2022.
Overall Rating: 8.5/10
Favourite Song - Déjà Vu
LUNDI
Back to Australia. Damn Aussies are just a music factory aren’t they? Lastlings are yet another successful artist hitting the scene with force on their first full length album First Contact.
Rufus du Sol Jr., better known as Lastlings, are the latest to take on the Australian Alt Dance genre after the success of their predecessors. Filled with ear worms and excellent production, this album checks the boxes of a successful EDM effort. I would have absolutely no issue dancing in a field to this. As a fairly infrequent EDM listener though, the question that continuously ran through my mind is why would I ever listen to this album when I can listen to Solace or Bloom (Rufus)?
My biggest gripe with EDM has always been artists inability to produce their material live but Lastlings appear to have conquered that. However in this genre I also struggle with rewarding the ‘flavour of the week’ mantra. EDM is all about chasing that next big thing that hits so in my mind you better do it to the highest ability in order to succeed. In this case though I believe you could simply plug and play Tyrone Lindqvist into the Lastlings album and think it’s a Rufus album, and that for me just isn’t right. You just have to do something unique.
There’s really no doubt in this album being strong in a vacuum to itself, but in the industry it’s as copycat as can be. It’s an album the guys from Rufus would put on their fridge to show that they are proud when in reality how good can macaroni art be?
Overall Rating: 6.2/10
Favourite Song: False Reactions