“Fraud in the ’80s”
from the album Bring It Back
2006
Download a free MP3 of “Fraud in the ’80s” from Barsuk Records
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Often, when talking about Mates of State, people mention the fact that the band is a married couple (Kori Gardner and Jason Hammel) before they talk about the music. See, I just did it. But while, yes, Gardner and Hammel are almost irritatingly beautiful and quite obviously very much in love, it’s the music they make that has, over the course of their free previous full-lengths, earned them a reputation as a truly unique, wonderfully complex pop band. On Bring It Back, the pair take their sound to still more creative heights: Gardner adds more than 20 different keyboards and sounds to her familiar bass heavy organ while Hammel’s ever-inventive drumming is embellished with a mind-boggling array of effects. The result is not only the duo’s most technically accomplished record but also its strongest. And although it is an ecstatic, hedonistic album (the couple made the record following the birth of their daughter) with instant, get-up-on-the-table-and-dance appeal, Bring It Back is most rewarding with repeated listens, when the pair’s dense, lush, layered melodies and quixotic harmonies are revealed in all their glorious, enchanting detail.