Ain’t So Young’s cover art.
“The day rock ‘n’ roll died / nobody listened at all,” Jared Savas sings on the first track of Glamour Assassins’ Ain’t So Young, the debut album of a New Haven-based band of music veterans who call their music all kinds of things — indie, dance punk, synth pop — but on this album find themselves riding the new wave.
Wait … new wave?
As Q‑Tip said all those years ago, Don’t you know that things go in cycles? New wave — that synth-driven genre that emerged from punk in the late 1970s to help define the sound of an era, as well as part of the sound of New Haven in the 1980s — has been back for a while. But it has changed, too. And so much the better.
“I was definitely into a lot of bands from that era,” Savas told the Independent. “The Clash is probably the biggest influence that I’ll ever have, but there’s a lot from 80s synth pop, too. I don’t know that there was a set goal to emulate that kind of sound. I just started writing songs, and I felt there was a world of sonic opportunities to tap into. But we really also want to do something that’s unique. It’s the familiar and the future. You can relate it to the past, but it’s also something fresh.”
Even on the album’s heavily synth-driven numbers — the ones that come closest to sounding like they could have been written by, say, Vince Clarke in his heyday — there is still very much a sense of the three decades of popular music that have elapsed since then, a flavor of today’s pop as much as yesterday’s, as well as the band’s own sensibilities pushing the music forward. The production, ably helmed by Joey Mascola, bypasses the super-bright sound of the 1980s (which, according to legend, sounds really good when you’re high on cocaine) for a darker sonic landscape that sounds more contemporary. There’s a subtle touch of the organic to the synths, too. On “Phantom of the Disco” and “Never Get Caught,” there’s less of the old dichotomy of human voice versus the machine than the sense of a band playing together, even if all the instruments are (or sound like they are) electronically generated.
Perhaps it’s not so surprising, then, that Ain’t So Young really takes off when it leans into a more obviously live sound. The drums on the album may be programmed, but Savas, guitarist Nick Post, keyboardist Carrie Martinelli, and bassist Gil Morrison build a living, breathing thing on that foundation. The world is full of giant pop guitar riffs, but on “The Day Rock ‘n’ Roll Died,” “Ain’t So Young,” “Hate Song Pt. II,” and especially the gleefully swinging “Scumbag,” Post finds room for his own strutting jangle. Morrison anchors the band’s sound with a precise, warm bass, while Martinelli’s synths never get too icy.
And out in front of it all is Savas, who gives it his all on every track. His honest approach gives his melodies dynamism and emotion, making sure that when he tells you to get up and dance, you do.
Glamour Assassins is celebrating the release of Ain’t So Young Friday at the Outer Space’s Ballroom. It will be performing with its full-tilt lineup of Savas, Post, Martinelli, Morrison, and José Novo on drums, who anchors and enlivens the band’s sound to move it from energetic to ferocious. The band will be supported by Mission Zero, Brighter Than A Thousand Suns, and If Jesus Had Machine Guns. A lineup like that promises to be another great night at the much-loved Hamden venue, and one that shows, yet again, how New Haven’s music community is coming together to create acts that could hold their own with the rest of the country.
Ain’t So Young will be released Friday. For more information about release show, visit the Outer Space’s website.
