Port-Royal: "Balding Generation (Losing Hair as We Lose Hope)"

Wow—you’ve got a widow’s peak, where did that come from? And you’re only seventeen? How peculiar. Still, at least now you can goth up for Halloween parties without having to dig out that Dracula comb. It’s all good. Hang about, either the widow has started to rappel swiftly south or the corners of your head are in retreat…and so begins the nightmare that is male pattern baldness, spreading like a Hollywood brushfire and leaving nothing but scrub in its wake. Port-Royal know the pain of follicle failure, too—there’s a patch appearing in the middle of their own name, a parting that verges on public humiliation and dissolves sex appeal with its goofiness. Fortunately, the band’s just signed to n5MD, so their hair loss can now be professionally curtailed till it shines like a Liberace toupee. These latest low-profilers to be snapped up by the wunder-label are healthy and brimming with energy, pumping dance twists into their film score textures with a subtext of hope and guitar bombs (tags from their promo sheet: Orbital+Aphex Twin+Mogwai+Sigur Rós). You’ve got to love at least one of those.

Their Welcome Pack for their new surrogates is as lush as anything you’d expect from the label in that it’ll make you either want to a) detox, or b) get perilously high. Though the title may lean towards a comedy folk act, the reality of “Balding Generation” taps a far deeper and more personal vein: its dainty robot chirrup performs a kind of Junior Boys/Daft Punk crossover, with Icelandic cherubs hovering close-by should you suddenly require some purity. The rigid drum kicks jog along with the white mist and happy pads, building an aura of electric delight that’s varnished with some syrupy vocals. All in all, it ramps up the emotions the label’s demanded for recent potentials to qualify, with its trance-saturated second half showing its hosts aren’t yet past dancing. This one’s intended for movement, and is precisely the kind of track you should prep for a night full of bright eyes and fireworks. So what if you’re losing your hair; you can always buy a hat. Last month they called you the future of post-rock (they did).