Review Summary: An enjoyable ode to 80's retro synth that never drags or soars.
Velcro Kid must represent the kind of music Thomas Giles himself uses to unwind. Each song is built on a single central idea, usually a melodic synth loop or rhythmic pulse. Its lush, brooding soundscape evokes very strongly the same retro synth influences as the Stranger Things soundtrack, albeit even darker and with an industrial/modern twist. The album is over almost as soon as it begins, clocking in at a terse 38 minutes. The tempo and feel of the songs don't vary much and many of the tracks struggle to differentiate themselves from one another, even though they are all enjoyable in their own right.
But the album does stand out in its guest appearances. "Devotion", featuring Jake Troth, and "Gazer", featuring the legendary Devin Townsend, each adapt the overall musical style to fit their guests' voices. The airy, spacey "Gazer" unsurprisingly fits both artists particularly well since their respective discographies share many of the same space-age influences. The delightfully aggressive "Strangers in a Paranoid Mind" fits into the same pattern, with Thomas Giles serving as his own guest as he briefly dons his Between the Buried and Me hat.
What's really missing from the other songs is character. Yes, each has its own melody, but they're all cut from the same cloth. The opening of "Acid Test" borders on self-plagiarism of the ends of both "Heart Collide" and "Grind the Falling" from his not-well-publicized "Dutch Book" film score, which is even more firmly rooted in 80's electronic influences. There's nothing as earnest as "Hamilton Anxiety Scale" from Pulse, or as contrasting as the "Noise Upon" interlude from Modern Noise. The album plays it very safe next to the older records in Giles's solo discography, which were substantially more experimental and took bigger risks.
Overall, Velcro Kid trots down the same increasingly electronic path Modern Noise and Pulse laid out before it. When the album works, it really works, but it too often blends into the background and doesn't develop its good ideas into great ones.
