Iteration

With Iteration, Haley has retained all of the qualities that made Com Truise so appealing while blowing everything up into a higher resolution than before. If this is truly the end of the Com Truise saga, then it's the project's definitive release.

Nostalgic, dramatic and not exactly short on synth, Iteration is the kind of album necessary to help us battle through the rest of 2017.

Though Haley's music still acts as a neon conduit to the '80s synth-wave scene, Iteration is chockfull of well-arranged and well-sequenced numbers.

Mostly, Iteration offers only a minor darkening of Haley’s familiar neon-lit moods. It’s a great sound and one always worth returning to, but you’re left wondering how long Haley can keep it up.

It may be purely synthetic, but Iteration is an honest, oddly humanistic new release from an artist with a glorious keyboard arsenal who knows how to use it.

Although Iteration is billed as an emotionally engaging album, finding the true feeling among towers of 80s pop synths and sequencers feels difficult at times. But never mind that - the production is perfection.

Sticking to his tested retro-futuristic aesthetic, Haley tries to find new life in well-trodden genres like synthwave and electro. He utilises the usual sci-fi tropes that inspired him to quit his job and pursue a career in music.

This time, Haley works around his limitations just enough to stave off one-trick irrelevance. Good on him, as it’s only a matter of time before ’80s retrofuturism becomes a thing of the distant past.

The best thing you can do is let Iteration’s rain-soaked neon lights wash over and see what you feel.

Only occasionally on a track like "Ternary" does Haley manage to land deeper cuts with a drifting, introspective piece that winds down and starts up again, hinting at dancefloor potential before stepping back at the last moment. It works; there's just not enough of it elsewhere on Iteration.

What ‘Iteration’ does, it does really quite well, but it also feels very much like a piece of background music; something which exists outside of your full consciousness.