In Perfect View, Lust For Youth have immersed fuzzed-up ’80s synthpop in an unnerving ambience, infused the whole thing with shades of house and come up with an album that’s a challenge, but a completely mesmerising one.
‘Perfect View’ is not, by most reasonable yardsticks, a shot at the mainstream, but it embraces notions of melody and danceability with considerably more warmth than his previous albums.
Outlines are blurred between post-punk, rave and a very modern psychedelia; brushing between textures and emotions with skillful subtlety and provoking sincere disappointment when ‘I Found Love In A Different Place’ brings proceedings to a close.
Some fans may miss the layers of static, but Perfect View succeeds with its thoughtful omission.
It’s bleak music conjured from machine rather than man, but Norvidde succeeds just as wholeheartedly as his friends and countrymen as conjuring the bitter darkness that’s coming to define the region.
Listening normally, the songs blur together like fan blades, and it's hard to tell how long you've been listening to Perfect View.
Despite the masochistic/silly lustiness behind it, and the eternal repetition, it's really quite entrancing. You're drawn into the music like moths to a bug zapper.
Although it’s a dark, drifting ride, Perfect View makes other recent minimal synth albums look positively one-dimensional in comparison, and does it in a third of the time.
While Perfect View isn’t a bad album, it doesn’t do enough to distinguish itself from the pack of dark wave synth acts with an infatuation for the early ‘80s that have come about in recent years.
#47 | / | Crack Magazine |