Once National Geographic wraps up its pretty entertaining three-night mini-series special on the ’90s, we’ll have successfully dried up any leftover nostalgia for the latter decades of the 20th century. Nat Geo asks if the ’90s were the last great decade, but as we’re now 15 years into the new millennium, it feels like the ’90s were simply just the last decade.
So where do we go from here? The world doesn’t seem ready for a fond look-back at the 2000s, no matter how many Y2k-wave playlists Boston writer Luke O’Neil creates on Spotify, especially since the past 14 years have essentially been sporadic re-boots of everything that came before it. No one really commemorated the the New Year’s Eve that brought us from ’09 to ’10.
With Western Education’s debut LP Let Your Secrets Out, officially out today, we’re getting perhaps one of the first Boston rock records — via the band’s hometown of Lowell — that wears its unapologetic early-2000s pride on its synth. And it firmly casts the 2000s as its own beast.
When we gave the New Ordered treatment to the Killers’ masterful debut Hot Fuss last month, we got the sense that maybe the musical landscape from a decade ago deserves more credit than it gets. The gents in Western Education, now all in their early-20s, were shaped musically by that era, as traces of the Killers and My Chemical Romance shine through their debut in one grand spectacle fit for 2004.
Releasing a full-length album is tricky business here in the frightful 2014, but a string of sterling singles (“All I Am,” “Rivals,” and “Peace,” all found here) give Let Your Secrets Out a nice “best-of” quality. Standout album cuts like the post-disco shake of “Ideal Situation” and synth-rock scorcher “I Can’t Heal” glow like future singles, and a case can be made for each of the record’s 11 tracks. It all adds up to a throwback futuristic sound that at the end of the day is just catchy-ass rock and roll.
You can stream Let Your Secrets Out below via Soundcloud, download it from iTunes, or order the compact disc via Big Cartel (CDs? How’s that for new old school?).
As an added bonus, frontman Greg Alexandropoulos and guitarist Georgio Broufas go Behind The Music with a song-by-song breakdown after the jump…
[embedvideo id=”tMcE8joLI1g” website=”youtube”]