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It feels strange to review a song with ‘future’ in the title when the song sounds as if it is from the 1980’s. Irish band New Sunset Hotel remind me of when U2 and Simple Minds ruled America with the slick brand of stadium Rock that developed after the New Romantics had their day in the sun. The structure of ‘Future of Mankind’, the arrangement and the production all have the same feel as bands from that era like Icehouse or Then Jericho; there’s lots of echoes and reverb, keyboards give a layer of sound with sharp, delayed guitar cutting through. You kind of anticipate the band photograph will feature rolled up jacket sleeves, stonewashed denim and mullets. Thankfully, it doesn’t and neither is this a bad song by any means, nor is it badly produced. It’s actually very listenable. It’s also not as if lots of modern bands, The Killers for example, don’t borrow from the 80’s and to those born in the 90’s New Sunset Hotel may sound fresh/different. It’ll be interesting to see how this is received by listeners in the year 2013.
‘Future of Mankind’ is available from iTunes from 8th March.
