It's asking for trouble naming yourselves The Modern. You had better be able to
walk it like you talk it. A name like that confers a certain degree of
expectation - the idea that the sound will be cutting edge, diamond sharp and
so ahead of the game that it is still patent pending. The lyrics should be a
riddle, a polemic device, metadata and metaphor thrown across a drill and bass
soundscape.
Do The Modern live up to their name? What do you reckon? They don't? You'd be
right. This is as modern as nylon. It's the Scissor Sisters disco glam in
a drunken fumble with The Human League but nowhere near as interesting as
that sounds. It's the kind of modernism that fuels nightclubs in Wiltshire
market towns.
Maybe its retro bassline, mono synth drones and passionless vocals are an
arty prank; a so-bad-it's-cool attempt at (post) modernism. If so it fails. It
lacks the high jinx, the wit and bite to make its mark that way. No hooks, no
soul and certainly not modern.
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