Let that be a lesson to all you kiddos considering either a career in a garage band or as an accountant. Once you get bit by the band bug, it's hard to recover from its alluring bane. That said, you're unlikely to acquire any genuine life satisfaction from filling out expense reports and emailing people about their audits. You only get one life so you might as well ride the hell out of it in a van with a bunch of other dudes who are putting off making any major life decisions in order to see the country and sleep on stranger's floors in front of TV sets that only ever seem to display the main menu screen of a Family Guy DVD. The show's theme song playing at full volume all night. No one knows what happened to the remote. No one knows how to change the input channel so you can watch regular TV. Such is life on the road. Such is life, period. And at 24 full-length albums in just under 20 years, I'd say this is more or less a permanent arrangement for Foree, this is the life he has chosen. It is great news for fans of weirdo punk rock like you and me.
Foree's latest release is New Wave Gold, a reflective album that looks back on the past two decades or so of American history and cultural and personal development with a look of furrowed brow, pursed-lipped concern. The album starts with the country karaoke twist of "Dark Ages" which is anchored by an acoustic guitar accompaniment. I cannot tell you how much it blows my mind to hear a guitar this forward in the mix on a Digital Leather track. Oh sure, there's that lovely tiger-cub-like purring synth in the bridge, but this electro-accent doesn't serve to claw the track back into Digital Leather orthodoxy as much as it highlights how far this album falls outside of Foree's own established conventions. To be honest, it's a good way to kick things off and sets the stage for later dusty bangers like the southward gazing, Cure capturing, jangle-juke cow-punk of "Acid Rain."
My favorite parts of New Wave Gold, though, are the album's forays into degraded dance-pop and electronic music, such as the lysergic lacquered post-funk of "Smoke Flood" and the viciously sequenced, darkwave detonator "Power Quest." "The King of Idiots" is a clammy blast of icy synth bombast that draws many of Foree's characteristic synth sounds into a pop-melody worthy of Peter Bjorn and John. There is even a groovy electro beat under the laconic "Iconography," which winds down with the intensely relatable refrain: "sucks to be alive."
I'm glad that Foree stuck it out long enough for his style to mature into a record like New Wave Gold. Two decades ago, Digital Leather changed what I thought was possible for punk and lo-fi music, and I'm glad that he's still able to help push these boundaries for me all these years later.
