A Blue Ocean Dream- On the Road to Wisdom

A Blue Ocean Dream’s fascination with 1980s synthpop is in clear evidence on the Swedish solo project’s latest album, but unfortunately the numerous references to dated camp fail as often as they succeed. “Musiq Roboter” is catchy and endearing despite its inherent silliness, but the alien invasion theme of “OOTW” and the sampled telephones of “Are You OK?” are painfully clichéd and amateurish. The more straightforward and sincere pieces are much better. “Fall Down,” for example, is an understated ballad in the vein of early Depeche Mode, while “Down To Vegas” is a hard-driving synthpop track with fast dance beats and some sharply delivered spoken word parts. “On A Sunny Day” is a rather insubstantial love song, but catchy vocal hooks and bouncy keyboards make up for the fluffiness, and “Cold” and “Streets of Monaco” are decent if not entirely original synthpop that should appeal to fans of other retro electronic acts. In A Blue Ocean Dream’s defense, although this album is derivative of classic acts from two decades ago, it doesn’t directly imitate any of them. Rather than sounding like a Depeche Mode rip-off or a Human League clone, this project has an original enough sound that you could confuse them for an actual undiscovered ‘80s act. Though the adherence to dated sounds and formulas will no doubt be a turn-off to some, diehard fans of old-school synthpop may end up enjoying this album a great deal.

Visit www.abod.se for more information on A Blue Ocean Dream.