It’s easy to spend a few minutes listening to the title track of Mode Moderne’s recent record Occult Delight and feel compelled to check off the familiar reference points. We won’t bother listing them here, because you already know them. And if you’ve made it this far into the twenty-teens still worshipping at the altar of post-punk and ’80s modern rock, then Mode Moderne have a sound that to your ears is both comforting and engaging all at once.
The Vancouver band has been chipping away at modernizing new wave landscapes for the past few years, but achieved a level of confident cruising altitude on Occult Delight, their new album out last month on British Columbia-based label Light Organ Records.
The standout track is the aforementioned title cut, which is along the lines of what most wished Editors would continue to sound like after catching our collective attention with The Back Room; singer Phillip Intilé’s brooding glides rather than drags, the guitar work glistens at over all the proper dirge-like points, and the chorus is aching to be heard again and again on crackling vinyl. It’s a melancholic fit of beautifully driven dream-pop for the underground sect, and nails a sound that’s beloved in certain shadowy corners.
Download Mode Moderne’s Occult Delight here, and unmask the video below.
