VCMG "Ssss"

Forming one of the greatest British bands back in the early eighties obviously wasn’t enough for Vince Clarke and Martin Gore. 30 years on they have decided to bury their differences and try again. Anyone with even as little as a passing interest in electronic music should have been eagerly awaiting the release of the VCMG album “Ssss”. So now it’s here what are we to make of it?

Well, despite having two of the greatest writers of pop songs this country has ever produced in the group, VCMG have gone down the ‘techno’ route. But it’s definitely techno with Depeche Mode DNA. Comparisons with “Speak & Spell” are a little wide of the mark, but there is liberal use of some wonderful analogue synth sounds that hark back to he early days of their careers and draw on their shared history and love of synthesizers.

I found the first single “Spock” a moderately entertaining slab of minimal techno that didn’t hold my interest for long. Yet in the context of the album the track sits nicely alongside its counterparts and sounds a much better prospect. There are some good tracks on the album with stand outs such as “Skip this track” and “Windup Robot” proving that these pop pioneers know just how to get us dancing.

This is my kind of techno – bright, mid tempo, funky, evolving and electro-pop tinged. Highly recommended to even none DM/Erasure fans.