Dorks And Losers

If you think Empire Of The Sun (not to be con­fused with the 1987 Steven Spielberg-directed movie) sounds cin­e­matic then it’s mis­sion accom­plished for the eccen­tric Aus­tralian duo.

Luke Steele (front­man for The Sleepy Jack­son) and Nick Lit­tle­more (one half of dance duo Pnau) dig cin­ema, and their band’s debut album Walk­ing On A Dream is actu­ally the byprod­uct of the com­plete script they had writ­ten for to be a feature-length movie.

“We wrote the whole script, so then we just wrote songs to fit into places within the script,” Steele recalls. “It’s a jour­ney of dis­cov­ery, like a road movie, but one you’re not see­ing on the road” (press release).

If it’s a road movie, then it’s a road movie in space judg­ing by either the album cover or after the first lis­ten through of the 44-minute electro-pop epic.

Empire Of The Sun is MGMT on steroids or at least some­thing that is some­thing that has to be ille­gal in at least eight coun­tries. Where MGMT is mel­low, Empire Of The Sun is out­landish. Where MGMT is Earthly, Empire Of The Sun is extraterrestrial.

The open­ing “Stand­ing On The Shore” is mis­lead­ing in that its rel­a­tive bare­ness, although strik­ing, leaves you unpre­pared for the rest. The title track “Walk­ing On A Dream” creeps up on you with its retro 1980s feel before hook­ing you with a supremely addict­ing pop melody and chorus.

Sub­se­quent tracks sound more dis­sim­i­lar as the album pro­gresses, but nonethe­less main­tain that Empire Of The Sun synth pop sound. Even the sub­dued (rel­a­tively speak­ing) “We Are The Peo­ple” can’t stop the duo’s momen­tum as it shifts from a techno west­ern “Coun­try” to a celes­tial ser­e­nad­ing “The World” to a hip-hop Justin Tim­ber­lake “SexyBack”-esque “Sword­fish Hotkiss Night.”

By movie stan­dards, Walk­ing On A Dream feels short, hav­ing taken the briefest path pos­si­ble to the other side of the uni­verse. If you ask Steele, he’ll explain that it was beyond their con­trol because “we really wanted to sur­ren­der to the higher call­ing, to the project as being the moti­va­tor.” That might sound creepy, but when you real­ize there’s a true method to their seem­ing mad­ness you take com­fort in know­ing there’s repeat button.

[photo via Sneak Attack Media]
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Track list:

1. Stand­ing On The Shore
2. Walk­ing On A Dream
3. Half Mast
4. We Are The Peo­ple
5. Delta Bay
6. Coun­try
7. The World
8. Sword­fish Hotkiss Night
9. Tiger By My Side
10. With­out You

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