"Sneak Attack" by Euan Blackman
Review
I suppose that if you are a smart & witty artist in the mould of Euan Blackman, and you have recorded a song called "Sneak Attack", then it's rather a clever idea to release it with minimal warning. It's out today on Ripe Records.
The final single before his third EP ‘Thunderstorms' drops, he describes it as "…a bit of an 80s pop slay banger.." which he and his band have been enjoying playing live.
Well he's certainly not seeking to deceive us: he's absorbed several sound features which were pretty prevalent during that decade: I've not heard drums like that in a long while.
I suppose that I can imagine the likes of Go West having come up with something like this (since they are apparently still around, maybe they'd like to cover "Sneak Attack"?) though it's not precisely an exercise in retro-styling: the progress of the intervening four decades has ensured that Euan is singing of today, even with some of the clothes of yesteryear on the song.
Most obviously, back in those days, pop songs not only had a tendency to veer towards the aspirational and the materialistic but also to be brightly optimistic.
The current generation has evolved many more traits of self-reflection and empathy with awareness of what uncontrolled materialism can do so this song is much less self-absorbed that would have been the case in 1984. Allied to Euan's continuing trademark processed vocals (I think he has a setting marked "wistful" on his desk), it celebrates the 80's sound while subverting its more deplorable values.
Beyond that, it's another of his newly minted move into more upbeat songs & will fit nicely with the other ‘Thunderstorms' tracks we've heard so far: "NOTHING2U", "Butterfly" and "I Don't Think About It (Too Much)" while complementing them rather than being cut from identical cloth: while the Smashing Pumpkins comparison was apt for "NOTHING2U", it most certainly isn't with this one!
