Album Review: Re-TROS - before The Applause

They weren't intent on wrestling financial superiority in football away from the European superclubs.

Now, China want the music scene. And Re-TROS - Rebuilding the Rights of Statues to give them their full title - have brought one hell of a synth party as their main weapon for the assault.

Mixing the post-punk desolation of British icons like Joy Division with the upbeat tempos of Frenchmen Daft Punk, they straddle genres and sound like a confident Wild West veteran taming the wildest of stallions. Or rather three. At once.

It is easy to see how they would have caught the eye of the dons of this type of sound - Depeche Mode. They are a pretty obvious nomination for support slot on their upcoming tour.

They hold an aura of mystery around them. They seem as distant as Kraftwerk with enough quirks to make an act like CSS seem relatively bland.

But onto that sound. Alarm bells spring to mind. The sudden aural assault of Red Rum Aviv slams into life with its machine gun percussion and pounding bass line that refuses to let up and holds you firmly in its grasp for five-and-a-half minutes.

And it's not even one of the longer efforts. Hailing Drums has a Prodigy-like electronic backing vocal that resonates for more than nine minutes with the frenetic pace and hidden aggressive tones of the biggest rock-rave anthems. You know that thumping tune that opens the movie Blade? The one in the night-club that reworked New Order's Confusion? That, but strangely more vicious.

Things can get quite haunting too. Sounding like a hallucagenic rethinking of Nick Cave's Red Right Hand - yes, the Peaky Blinders theme - Pigs In The River slinks in and out of distorted guitar with the kind of danger you would expect from toiling away in a molten-hot smelting works.

The Last Dance, W. is where we really leave the realms of normality and drift, almost dream-like, through the tossed away imagination of Trent Reznor. Like a melodic game of Pong it beats to its conclusion while Dracula-esque keys screech above in a tormented fashion.

This is all kinds of cool wrapped up into one record that steps far away from their more guitar-based previous material.

I imagine it is the video game Nintendo would love to create if sales weren't the prime concern.

Rating: 7/10

Re-TROS are supporting Depeche Mode when the Brit superstars play Arena Birmingham on Sunday, November 19.