I usually sigh internally when I come across music tagged as "synth," especially when it follows the term "minimalist." Surprisingly, L.A. Dark Waver Frank Alpine's 2011 self-titled album is one of the most engaging albums I've heard in a long time.Post-punk drum(-machine)-fills hem in dense, brooding, swirling synth lines just enough to create a very focused, immediate listening experience. It is precisely this focus - this hemming in - that prevents the album's eight songs, which average five minutes in length, from spilling into amorphousness and instead feel shorter than they actually are; the forty-three-minute album is over before I know it, and I'm always left craving more.
Like Dark Wave's close cousins Post-Punk and New Wave, Frank Alpine is also a danceable enough album: the final track "My Feelings" could easily pass as a streamlined LCD Soundsystem B-Side (an artist who's never hidden his Post-Punk and New Wave proclivities), complete with marginally distanced vocals and James Murphy-like vocal delivery.
In addition to the hyperlinked "My Feelings," I've included my three favourite tracks from Frank Alpine:
