Covers 80's

iTunes Review

Duncan Sheik pays tribute to his adolescence with a trip back to the ‘80s, expanding on an earlier EP of covers. His choices are from college radio of the era. Depeche Mode (“Stripped”), Thompson Twins (“Hold Me Now"), New Order (“Love Vigilantes”) and Howard Jones (“What Is Love?”) are reinterpreted without their supersized reverbs and overactive synthesizers and brought back to acoustic guitar and voice with modest backup. They sound very much like latter day Duncan Sheik songs with his flat, dry vocal tone surfing the notes without injury. The Cure’s “Kyoto Song” receives a more dramatic backing but still many miles from Robert Smith’s doomscapes. The Smiths’ “William, It Was Really Nothing” sounds more like a folk song than the tease it was in Morrissey’s hands. Talk Talk’s “Life’s What You Make It” comes closer to the sound of a Mark Hollis solo album. The Blue Nile’s “Stay” traps Sheik in a small room with vague interplanetary transmissions trying to break through. It’s a nicely crafted labor of love.