‘I Like It When You Sleep’ review: The 1975’s bold, new spin on current New Wave trend
The 1975's new album is "I Like It When You Sleep, for You Are So Beautiful Yet So Unaware of It." Credit: Dirty Hit / Interscope
THE GRADE B+
BOTTOM LINE More like The 1982, amiright?
You have to hand it to The 1975.
It takes a certain type of band to wear their influences on their sleeves so brashly. Or given singer Matthew Healy’s seeming allergy to shirts, maybe the British popsters wear them around their belt loops.
Anyone who remembers the New Wave invasion of 1982 knows there were dozens of synth-loving, funk-steeped bands that sounded just like The 1975 — from Duran Duran to INXS to Go West. But that doesn’t stop Healy and friends from carrying on like they invented it on their second album, brazenly titled “I Like It When You Sleep, for You Are So Beautiful Yet So Unaware of It” (Dirty Hit / Interscope).
The single “Love Me” grinds along like a mix between Duran Duran’s Nile Rodgers days and INXS’ “Need You Tonight” nights. “Ugh!” finds them grooving like the second coming of Go West.
However, The 1975 does put its own spin on the current new new wave trend in the buoyant, Passion Pit-like “The Sound” or the moody “Somebody Else.” After all, as the famed rock philosopher Virgil says, fortune favors the bold. And The 1975 is nothing if not bold.
