REVIEW: Night Spice Succumb to the Virtual Future with Digitize EP
The first few times I heard Night Spice, in my head I pictured a band performing in black suits and sunglasses, like a Secret Service detail. The synthwave grooves and skull thumping beats in songs like 'Damn, That Hot Synth' probably triggered the part of my brain that's still playing Hotline Miami like it's 2012 and the association just stuck.
If you look up Miami, IL on Google Maps, you aren't going to find anything. But it's this setting/state of mind where the Night Spice universe takes hold. Until the long-rumored in-universe comic comes along, we only get glimpses of Miami, IL through Night Spice's first two albums, the aptly named Welcome to Miami, IL, and Welcome to Miami, IL Chapter 2: After Dark. And from what we can tell, things are fucked up. Touching on themes of paranoia, technological overreach, and straight up corruption, the world built through their lyrics paints a pretty dire picture for this dark metropolis.
But fear not, good citizens. Like a Justice League armed with synthesizers, an overpowering rhythm section, and (now more than ever) crunchy guitars, Night Spice is here to take the streets of Miami, IL back on their new Digitize EP. Fans of their previous work will find more of the same here, but immediately kicked up a notch. The title track is an exploration of despair and giving up set over a guitar riff and wailing synth attack that sounds like the kind of music you would hear in your head as you went to go take revenge on someone.
The combination of double bass drums and staccato crescendos beginning and sprinkled throughout 'Symphony of the Damned' immediately brings 'Through the Fire and Flames' by Dragonforce to mind, but if they swapped Ibanez guitars for 80's keytars. Songs like 'All or Nothing' feel like a natural progression of songs like 'Plums' off Welcome..., like when video games get a 4K remaster with extra content thrown in.
It might be that exact kind of digitalization of our future that will lead us down the road to Miami, IL's cyberpunk-inspired post-apocalyptic future, and maybe Digitize is a warning to us all before we go too far down that path. But with the groovy-ass songs on Digitize as a worthy successor to the progression on Welcome... and Welcome...Chapter 2, Night Spice aren't exactly dissuading me from heading in that direction.
Fingers crossed it's more 'happy carefree San Junipero' and less 'human battery The Matrix'.
Night Spice will be playing Thalia Hall in Chicago this Saturday night with Marina City, Muted Color, Division Point, and Grayson DeWolfe. Tickets available here.