Pitchfork

Remember when MTV was still that little renegade music channel? I vividly recall sitting in front of the TV when I was a kid, entranced for hours by Twisted Sister, Def Leppard, and Quiet Riot videos. And though I wasn't entirely sure about what was going on in front of my eyes, I was fascinated all the same. To think that there were places where grown men ran around in make-up and spandex and still managed to kick total rock ass. These were guys that acted completely insane, yet took themselves seriously and were fawned over by women everywhere. As a child, it was like a portal into a strange parallel universe where all of my small town values were inverted.

Then there was the other breed of MTV musician: synth-pop guys who seemed more like real artist types and didn't seem to be concerned as much with making a fantastic testosterone-soaked spectacle of themselves as creating seductive and melodic music. Naked Eyes, Human League, Talk Talk-- they seemed so cutting edge with their Roland synths and electronic drumpads, and the sounds they created were something entirely new, at least to popular music (sorry, I wasn't listening to Brian Eno and Kraftwerk when I was 10).

This was the type of stuff that really interested me. But somewhere along the line, synth-pop began its long estrangement from melody, and electronica began to take over. It started innocuously enough, but soon began incorporating more beat manipulation and studio effects until it was finally twisted into the form known today as IDM. I miss those early days when the technology didn't rule the product, and I think it's time we saw some songwriters doing a little taking back. It's time for a rebirth of synth-pop, wherein all the new innovations in electronic music are employed in the service of melody.

As my posterchild for this movement, I select Hood. (I also accept donations.) Cold House takes a fantastic batch of songs and intelligently mixes in cutting edge electronic elements a la Autechre and Nobukazu Takemura, a couple of west coast underground hip-hop artists, and some delicate backing arrangements, and creates one of the most innovative releases of the past year.

The biggest surprise on Cold House is the guest spots by Anticon MCs Dose-One and Why?. I'm not sure how Hood hooked up with the San Francisco rappers, but their inclusion here was a brilliant decision. The duo's scat lyrics and drum-n-bass delivery really temper the album, preventing it from becoming too soft at points. Chris Hood's lead vocals aren't very inspiring, falling limply somewhere between Badly Drawn Boy and Bernard Sumner, but by mixing in the slit cut vocals, spoken word and psychobabble riffing, a perfect contrast is created between the them.

The album opens promisingly with "They Removed All Trace That Anything Had Happened Here," a nice mix of delicate start/stop clicks, jangly guitar and tasteful cello arrangements. The song splits the vocal sections, starting first with Chris Hood and then handing everything over to Dose-One, who drones over a repeated vocal loop whose compelling nature lies in its unintelligibility. "You Show No Emotion at All" kicks off with an unimaginative scratchy beat, but soon picks up with nice trumpet and keyboard fills, revealing itself as the strongest track on the album that strictly features Hood's own vocals.

"With Branches Bare" thrives on a distended drone that sounds clipped straight from Depeche Mode's Violator. Halfway through, Dose-One hops in with his nasal tone and surreal lyrics: "We spit in the pond to give the fish something to pray to/ Sometimes the sunset doesn't want to be photographed/ We are no tigers in the picked-bone grasslands." But the album's standout comes with the closing track, "You're Worth the Whole World." It's sung entirely by Dose-One over a low-mixed spoken track, a simple picked guitar progression, and hushed horn keyboards that lead in from the melancholy preceding track, "Lines Low to a Frozen Ground."

There are some misses in the middle of the album, like "The River Curls Around This Town," a track that, while never really amounting to much, does end with some nice, richly atmospheric electronic gamelan sounds. Indeed, all of the tracks on Cold House-- even the weaker ones-- contribute something of interest. Take, for instance, "I Can't Find My Brittle Youth," which might amount to little more than filler if not for the machine gun drumming that comes out of nowhere and closes the track like John Bonham at 78rpm.

Since their inception in 1994, Hood haven't been able to make up their minds what kind of band they want to be. Over the course of their past four albums (not to mention their countless singles, EPs, compilation appearances, remix records, and collections), they've jumped indecisively from genre to genre, experimenting with shoegazer, straightforward indie rock, slowcore, and lo-fi. But with Cold House, Hood seem to have finally stumbled into a sound all their own, melding their countless influences into something totally unique and, at last, giving music fanatics and critics worldwide a reason to look forward to their future releases. Let's hope the payoff is this good next time around.