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Places Like This | Architecture In Helsinki
Polyvinyl Records | 5th June

Review by Tom Fairman

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Sounds like … a slightly-sexualised High-5

A Mess+Noise reviewer once described listening to Sarah Blasko’s music like “sucking on candy while thinking about diabetes.” In that case, listening to Architecture in Helsinki, the iconic Melbourne-based Indie group, is like sucking on candy while thinking about sugar.

This ultra-sweet aesthetic has been a common theme for the band. 2000’s ‘Finger’s Crossed’ sampled a garbling baby on the track ‘The Owl’s Go’, and 2004’s ‘In Case We Die’ featured ‘Maybe You Can Owe Me’, a primary-school love ballad for a pair of innocent, naïve schoolmates whose sleep-depriving attraction to one another was mixed equally with fear.

On Places Like This, they seem to be aiming for more maturity. Let’s call it the ‘early-high-school’ phase of their career. It’s that time of your life where you’re no longer afraid to dance, yet you have no real idea where those moves may lead you. A good example is ‘Hold Music’ - while at times reminiscent of a saucy R’n’B anthem, it ends up sounding something like a slightly-sexualised High-5. The sweet naivety of the ‘techture in ‘sinki pervades despite their desire to grow up, and with a record as enjoyable as this, you can’t really hold their saccharin sound against them.

Sadly, the album as a whole doesn’t have the stamina to make an indelible impression on your music collection. That said, opener ‘Red Turned White’ may, in some respects, be the most redeeming and impressive song on the album. The song evolves from a disjointed drum beat and seemingly out of key vocals before slowly, like an image coming into focus, twisting into a realised track you can damn well shake your booty to. From chaos to disco in 2:46 - How can one complain?

7 out of 10