Reptar – Lurid Glow

Waltzes in Your Mind

Have you seen Reptar’s website? It’s a doozy all right. It seems the Athens, Georgia natives have a thing for the late-90s era, seeing that their site is built to look exactly like the old Windows computers some of us 20- and 30-somethings remember using in the school library. To top it off, they pulled their name from a character on one of Nickelodeon’s most popular cartoon shows at the time, Rugrats.

Labeled as “dance rock,” Reptar toured for several years before putting out anything official, which is why they’re only on their second full-length even though they’ve been a band for more than 6 years. Pitchfork gave their debut Body Faucet a mere 3 out 10, which usually means it’s a must-listen. They’ve yet to write a word about Reptar’s latest, Lurid Glow, but aside from the addition of even more sound and being cleaner, there isn’t much of a difference as both albums complete the early 20-somethings’ goal well: Get people moving.

“No One Will Ever Love You” is the first of the 10 tracks and wastes no time providing funky toe-tapping beats. Graham Ulicny’s signature vocals are still as high and 80s-pop-esque as they ever have been, except in “Cable” where he’s heard screaming to the point of a rasp. “Ice Black Sand” is the album’s single and features all of the above: a toe-tapping beat, Ulicny’s notorious vocals and an array of sounds arranged in a concise manner.

“If this album was a human,” Ulicny said in an interview, “it would be a skeleton using a smartphone to locate its internal organs.” Not the most understandable description, but it apparently means the band went out of their way to create a more organized album. Lurid Glow is well worth more than a 3-out-of-10 rating.