Neon Indian - Vega Intl. Night School

Neon Indian
Vega Intl. Night School
2015

Neon Indian is a completely appropriate name for this band and this album in particular encapsulates the idea of a neon life. After dark, especially late night is where this album resides. Vega Intl. Night School fluctuates between catchy indie dance pop and straight up avante garde electronic music. Some of the album sounds like something Prince would put out in his more experimental years, while other tracks are pretty straight forward funk. The album can all at once be fully engaging and off-putting. Vega Intl. Night School takes the stance that perhaps the 80 never really had to end. Not the overblown ridiculousness of the decade, but the blaring lights and synth-pop bringing together funk, R&B and early rap into something that everyone could dance to all night long. You can feel those influences seeping into every corner of this record making it more of an art piece than perhaps even Neon Indian supposed it could be at it's inception.

I mentioned it before but Prince is really all over this album. The Purple One has been down most the paths Neon Indian attempts to venture, but much much earlier. You would think that Prince would respect the homage here, but at times it comes so close to straight imitation that it may be hard to accept. Things do get a bit muddled towards the end of the record with songs seeming to blend one into the other creating a sort of vacuum where only the neon light can exist. The vibe created here really is incredible, and is so right on the surface it cannot be missed. Neon Indian is taking 80s dance and synth pop to another level here while not taking the genre and forcing it into a 2015 bubble. A really interesting listen, though I don't know how many times I would go back to this well.

6.7 out of 10