CULTURE OF VOLUME the second album by William Doyle who records as East India Youth is a significant improvement on his debut TOTAL STRIFE FOREVER. The main reason being that while STRIFE was almost half instrumentals, only three of CONTROL's tracks are.
The rest showcase Doyle's strengths - An 80's synth pop sound driven by slightly noisier NIN/Eno type eruptions and equalized by his pretty vocals which remind me of a mellower Marc Almond.
Faster tunes like End Result and Beaming White really get his groove on while the gorgeous Carousel bring to mind the Soft Cell track Youth or some of Erasure's ballads.
The facelessness behind this music, that is the lack of the cornball over emoting and big cheesy melodic shifts of the new romantic movement of the 80's, is neither overly good or bad. Doyle would be better served by slightly honing his songcraft although CULTURE shows excellent growth.
I hope his next record is nothing but songs - no instrumentals or noodling weirdness.
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