Pitchfork

I remember the day my family got its first VCR, in 1984. My parents left my brother and me at my grandparents' house while they went out to revolutionize our home with the purchase of not just the VCR, but also a microwave (both appliances, incidentally, are still in service). I remember my dad programming the clock and then taping an episode of Masterpiece Theater so he could watch it later, even though we were home when it aired. Despite its shortcomings-- lousy tracking was always a problem-- the VCR really did change things for us, and I still have tapes that we made in the waning days of Reaganomics, including an entirely uncensored version of Animal House that we apparently taped off of network television in the middle of the night. Don't tell Michael Powell.

If the VCR brings back fond memories of the 80s, then VCR, a quintet from Richmond, Virginia, might reasonably be expected to do the same. The font on their debut EP's cover seems to imply that they will, but this turns out not to be the case. There are plenty of people who'll try to lump this disc in with the recent 80s revivalist wave on account of the bandname, the artwork and the synthesizers, and I suppose it's of a piece with the post-post-punk that's dominated the five boroughs and year-end lists lately, but it frankly doesn't sound at all like that decade. The buzz of the synths hints at it, but there's at least as much Dischord abrasion and punk gallop in this stuff as there is Human League dancefloor pyrotechnics.

Despite the ragged edges they display, though, VCR are first and foremost a party band, and in case you couldn't figure it out from the hip-pumping rhythms and triple keyboard assault of the first five tracks, they spell it out for you on closer "We Are VCR", easily the record's weakest track. The song is decently catchy and marginally ass-shaking, but it's hard to hear the rallying call as they shout their association with an obsolete home entertainment appliance. They also claim to be the future of dance music, but as far as I can tell, they're simply the right-now of dance music, caught on what seems to be the ebbing end of indiedom's fling with dancefloor sweat.

Still, this doesn't negate the fact that the other five tracks are immense fun. Opener "Rad" spills over with saw-toothed keyboard hooks, and the rhythms are potent enough to get a few people out of their chairs. Vocalist/keyboardist Christian Newby's slurred bark (think halfway between Isaac Brock and J. Robbins) isn't an optimal melodic vehicle, but he manages well, often ceding the hooks to the keys or backing vocalist/keyboardist Mya Anitai. They share the lead on the EP's best track, "King and Queen of Winter", a song that charges in hard with smacking drums and scattershot vocals, only to pull back for the band's most strongly melodic vocal parts, gradually letting the rhythm creep back in and bringing the song back around to a full-on thump, where it remains. "Bratcore" mashes up Polysics keyboard histrionics and Faint gloom-and-doom with aplomb, whipping up a great dance number.

VCR may not be dance-rock's greatest hope, as they claim to be, but they've constructed some tight songs for their debut EP, and as it blows by in 18 minutes, it's surefire ear candy. At the very least, they live up to their name by warranting multiple playbacks, and for music that revels in passing frivolity, that's something.