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Album Review

Bananarama – ‘Masquerade’ [Album Review]

Bananarama’s ‘Masquerade’ is a fun record, brimming with energy and vitality. It’s a welcome album for the top-down road trips and beach parties in which we’ve got mere weeks left to indulge.

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Bananarama (with whom we recently spoke) dive headfirst into the world of synth-pop that they helped create 40 years ago (before the ’00s revival and subsequent ’80s synthwave worship that persists into our current Stranger Things-obsessed era). There’s something very rewarding about sitting down to a recent offering from such an established duo and finding an exciting mix of retro roots paired with contemporary production and influences.

On Masquerade, the synth forms a centrepiece for each song, around which percussion and vocals wind upward like a caduceus of sonic epiphany. Album opener “Favourite” starts with an energy that never leaves throughout the rest of the album. Coupled with contemporary R&B vocal hooks, violin strings and vocoding, it revs the engine and continues full throttle into the suitably titled “Stay Wild.” From there, the dance continues at a tempo, never letting up, instead hanging on to its ravaged listener like a wild lover.

On that note, the lyrics are focused on love in all of its wildest forms: wanted, tainted, and not yet realized: the perfect heady mix of tragedy, hope, and comedy. It’s a perfect tripartite theme for an album titled “Masquerade,” itself being an apt description for a band that leans heavily into its storied reputation for personality by way of synth-pop. With such a catalogue of absolute classics in their past (“Venus”? “Cruel Summer”?), it’s no small wonder that the duo has leaned into their dance sensibilities to ensure they continue the verve for a world that finds itself clawing its way back into normality following a seemingly endless pandemic.

It’s a fun record, brimming with energy and vitality. Clocking in at a lean 39 minutes, it eschews indulgent melodrama or soporific ballads. Instead, Masquerade whirls in the grips of ecstatic celebration and performance, locked into its adulation of synth-wrought magnanimity. It’s a welcome record for the top-down road trips and beach parties in which we’ve got mere weeks left to indulge.

Bananarama by In Synk

Masquerade Track Listing:

1. Favourite
2. Stay Wild
3. Velvet Lies
4. Masquerade
5. Running With The Night
6. Bad Love
7. Let’s Go Outside
8. Brand New
9. Need A Little More
10. Forever Young
11. Waiting For The Sun To Shine

Run Time: 39:01
Release Date: July 22, 2022
Record Label: In Synk

Director of Communications @ V13. Lance Marwood is a music and entertainment writer who has been featured in both digital and print publications, including a foreword for the book "Toronto DIY: (2008-2013)" and The Continuist. He has been creating and coordinating content for V13 since 2015 (back when it was PureGrainAudio); before that he wrote and hosted a radio and online series called The Hard Stuff , featuring interviews with bands and insight into the Toronto DIY and wider hardcore punk scene. He has performed in bands and played shows alongside acts such as Expectorated Sequence, S.H.I.T., and Full of Hell.

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