No Deal Disco: Angry Pretty – EP review

EP review

NO DEAL DISCO  Angry Pretty  EP  (Pity Party Record Collective)

Out now

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No Deal Disco are a bit of an enigma. I described them/him here as having “a sense of being a release-valve for the frustrations of a once happy-go-lucky dude”.  But it’s just simply great left-field bedroom pop. Ged Babey reviews the debut EP, the first release on Berlin-based label Pity Party Record Collective. 

No Deal Disco are basically Sam Robinson. He’s less of an ‘angry, young man’, more an amiable nice guy but a very cool songwriter.

No Deal Disco is my solo project. My imaginary band. My impassioned attempt to organise rubbish thoughts into enjoyable songs. I write, usually tongue in cheekily, about national pride, masculinity, parents, money, mental health, jobs, body image, and all the other stuff that has shaped me into the anxious extrovert you hear before you.

It’s music. It’s for dancing. But it’s not disco.

Why Angry Pretty?

“Most of my lyrics are inspired by feelings of anger and frustration (I live in Little England after all), but the sound of the music’s quite soft in places. There are some real ambient moments in there and some poppy guitar riffs too. Angry Pretty starts and ends in two very different places!”

Never Trust The Pub Man is the most immediate song of the four and is just crying out for a neat, clever, minimalist promo video to be made for it.

Headspace Hotel is a neat piece of retro-modern art-pop and the other two tracks are instrumental with How’s It Going To End? particularly tense and disco-at-the-end-of-the-universe.

It is just a superb, self-contained, slightly odd collection of songs. well-produced, immediately likeable, tuneful and relatable. I can hear Metronomy and New Order bobbing beneath the surface influence-wise.

No Deal Disco are cool, very… as well as angry, pretty.

Buy from Bandcamp

All words  Ged Babey

Source: louderthanwar.com