Review Summary: A safe and solid return.
Synthwave is a by-product of 80s pop culture, this is no secret. Its whole selling point is repackaging 80s technology and making something creative out of it; because of this, it’s a sound that has to shield itself behind the nostalgias of that era, regardless of how artistically inventive it attempts to be. To be blunt, it’s a genre built upon the limitations set by technology made 30-some years ago, and as a result makes itself a novelty with restricted movement. That’s not to say I don’t find the genre deeply enjoyable, because I do. Perturbator, Com Truise and Dynatron are but a few of the big artists from the synthwave movement who take these beloved tropes and make grand spectacles out of them – but there’s only so many ways you can hear this sound without it coming across homogenised after a few albums. This is Com Truise’s fourth LP and the first to move away from the equipment that made his first three albums. Listening to
Persuasion System however, you can scarcely tell. The production is a little crisper, the tone a shade darker at times, but generally speaking it’s the same recycled premise. “Ultrafiche of You” and “Persuasion System” represent the classic Com Truise sound: mid-tempo pops, rattling hi-hats, and punches of elasticated synth and glitchy samples that bring his trademark feel-good sound to the forefront. At times occasionally more melancholic than usual with the ambient calm of “Guassian” and its misty backdrop concealing bare piano keys which sit in the centre of its haze; other times “Laconism” provides a more intense and hostile array of sounds than previously explored. These changes are minute though, and it doesn’t help that the pacing of the album is a little more sluggish than normal. It’s clear it was a conscious effort to savour this intergalactic soundscape and add more detail, but its after-effects certainly carry over excess baggage. It’s not a bad album by any means and if you like his work, this will deliver in all the ways you’d expect, but in that regard that’s half the problem.
FORMAT//EDITIONS: DIGITAL/̶/̶C̶D̶/̶/̶V̶I̶N̶Y̶L̶
PACKAGING: N/A
SPECIAL EDITION BONUSES: N/A
ALBUM STREAM//PURCHASE: https://comtruise.bandcamp.com/album/persuasion-system-2
