by John Brouk
Having taken us on a contiguous trip of colorful and cheery chillwave on last year’s Coast 2 Coast, LA-based duo Pearl & The Oysters have now set their sights for intergalactic territory to see if signs of retro-tinged synth pop can also be found in other planetary systems. Their findings prove quite fruitful, as heard on their brand new record, Planet Pearl.
The colorful, musical pinball machine that is “Side Quest” kicks off this celestial expedition with plenty of fun flashing lights, bleeps and bloops that spin, oscillate, modulate, swirl, and whirl, showing that the band knows how to put a vintage synthesizer through its paces. Like the control panel of a futuristic spaceship shifting into hyperspeed, no button, switch, or knob will go unturned. All of this is complemented by light and playful lead vocals that sing of anxiety and miscommunication, while grooving bass lines and danceable drumming keep everything grounded. This song could easily find a home within an arcade’s Dance Dance Revolution dance mat.
After this eventful introduction, the album wafts into a NES-like underwater level that further explores lyrical themes of misunderstanding, confusion, and misdirection. The stair-stepping melody of “Halfway Where?” laments disenchantment with one’s personal progress, accented with flute flourishes. On “Together, Alone” the refrain of “2020-something, I forgot the year. I don’t do this time thing, I just play it by ear” echoes a sentiment that anyone living through the truly turbulent and disorienting decade that the ‘20s has been can relate to.
These more placid and starry-eyed vibes, combined with ideas of cosmic contemplation and non-conformity are revisited later on in the tracklist. “Ripple” is like a Beach House or Melody's Echo Chamber song with the levers labeled “quirkiness” and “catchiness” cranked to the max. The addition of a jazzy guitar that takes turns soloing with more flute adds extra color to “Triangular Girl” and sees the band as an extraterrestrial lounge act. Acting as such, they extend Karen Carpenter’s call to occupants of interplanetary craft to new edges of the galaxy in the triumphantly lush and trance-like “A Planet Upside Down” and the smoky, sultry slower paced “I Fell Into a Piano”.
Towards the album’s midway point, it shifts into a more energetic gear with “Cruise Control” and “Big Time,” in which the band's amalgamation of ‘70s and ‘80s synths steer closer to the elder decade. “Big Time” uses a bouncy piano chord progression, wah-wah guitar riff, and vocoder chorus harmonies as a backdrop to the narration of a day in the life of a tired, lonely, and weary citizen of a tourist-infested paradise. “Cruise Control” is another synth pop rollerblading party, where concerns of using the ephemeral and vapid channels of the internet to express one’s artistry feel quite dystopian. Artists who pour their talent, time, and own money into making something beautiful are rewarded only by being subjected to the whims of exploitative platforms and incomprehensible algorithmic chaos that treats their work as just another form of “content”.
The album closes out with a pair of more guitar-oriented tracks. The wavering rocker “4D” has condensed and crackling guitars that hold a steady strum pattern as synths twirl until a climatic chorus with a building drum beat and transcending harmonies and an arpeggioed riff have us floating. This is contrasted nicely with a rollicking fuzzed guitar solo that brings us to the second verse, and eventually another dreamlike chorus that is cut short by a transition to the album’s swan song, “Mid City”. This mid-tempo song has a rhythmic Velvet Underground-like guitar strum that drifts into a more ethereal synth-laden domain. This acts as the album’s closing credit soundtrack, giving us space to air out all the different realms that have been visited over the course of the record.