Chad Valley – 'Young Hunger' review
If the logical answer to the current fashion for glossy 80s pop – be it filtered though dusty record boxes like Toro Y Moi or reimagined for a post-Spotify world like Chairlift – is simply to make dead-straight, no-blinking glossy 80s pop, then Oxford’s Chad Valley must be the clearest thinker in pop today. Unfortunately, Valley’s stated aesthetic aim, as his press release insists, of an “80s record in every sense… meticulously produced, big sounding, with no room for hiss and noise” has left Young Hunger so smooth as to be textureless. Autotune and flawless synths rule, resulting in a record so devoid of emotional heft that even guest vocalists Twin Shadow and Glasser struggle to jog it from its flatness.
Occasionally, as on Up & Down and the title track, a human touch surfaces briefly, but is quickly suppressed among layers of faceless wash, and while this might be the artistic intention, it makes for a rather disturbing, uncanny listening experience.
4/10
