UNICORN

Product Information

Weaponized Love” feels like their love letter to Nine Inch Nails with its lusty lyrics and beats and “Holographic Heart” – which features Britta Phillips – is pure Madonna worship in the best way. Named after the international icon of fantasy and imagination, UNICORN is emblazoned with the tagline “Imagination Is A Weapon”.

Unfortunately, once you’re past the halfway mark, songs start to bleed into each other and it’s just too much. And thus, it’s telling how much backup on Unicorn comes from those established names in ‘80s—or ‘80s-replicating—synthwave work. Dive into fantasy and revel in imagination on this new 14 track electric thrill ride featuring special guests John Carpenter, Gavin Rossdale (Bush), Dave Lombardo (Slayer), Carpenter Brut, Milkie Way (Wargasm), Tim Cappello (Lost Boys), Health, Tyler Bates (John Wick, Guardians of the Galaxy etc), Lights, Power Glove, Charlie Simpson, Britta Philips (Jem), and Stella Le Page. We don’t share your credit card details with third-party sellers, and we don’t sell your information to others.It’s followed by ‘Empress of the Damned’, a glitching, pulsing anthem fuelled by the high, airy voice of Canadian electropop star Lights . The 103 third parties who use cookies on this service do so for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalized ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products. They’re simply just parts of an objectively impressive array of guests, plugged into place with barely a thought given to what uniqueness they could possibly bring. It’s one of the reasons why Unicorn’s last leg is such a drag, where Westaway’s use as a functional mouthpiece just doesn’t gel with the overall intentions.

Tech Noir’ finally gets a sequel too, with ‘Tech Noir 2’ bringing Charlie Simpson back to team up with his Fightstar bandmates alongside John Carpenter. Regardless as a somewhat self-professed metalhead, synthwave provided some of the same release that I get from riffs and blast beats but it does so through a completely different sonic milieu. To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. If that’s the intent, then obviously Unicorn is a roaring success, but empty-calorie nostalgia-baiting with nothing beneath the shiny, neon veneer is obviously not a good outcome. It doesn’t matter how airtight your stylistic recreations are, or how many big-name guests you can bring onboard; without the songs to keep it all steady, you’re just going to sink.It’s the consequence of caring so much for aesthetic to true musical inspiration is cast so far aside, it’s barely on the board anymore. Early in their career GUNSHIP very understandably did this, but on this album they are embracing the future in a way that they haven’t before. Tastes Like Venom’ is another solid floorfiller, but it feels like it’s lacking some oomph, or perhaps just the star-studded remainder of Unicorn ’s other opening songs overshadow it. In the last eight years, they’ve released just two albums to date, Unicorn marking their third album and, unsurprisingly, it’s just as jam-packed with features from across the musical spectrum as ever.

And so, when he’s left to fend for himself as a singer here, there’s a distinct lack of awareness among Gunship of how prominent that weakness can be. Opener pazzesca (di cui è stato realizzato un bellissimo video a tema cyberpunk), seguita da un saggio dosaggio di brani ora sognanti e atmosferici, ora incalzanti, sempre nostalgici di un'estetica di un tempo che fu (l'introduzione di John Carpenter in Tech Noir 2 è programmatica). I mean, there isn't much else to say - if you liked some of the songs on their first two albums, then you'll definitely like some of the tracks on this one.You’d think they’d be more memorable overall, given how ready their fanbase was to pounce on any assertions that Dark All Day wasn’t a good album (which it wasn’t), but maybe that’s just how it goes when there’s so little musical nutrition to go on. Their restlessness is nothing but a benefit for us as this record is a warm welcome back and quite the treat for those of us that have been waiting for years for that neon and chrome synthwave that they are so adept at creating. The songs are great and varied but all with that GUNSHIP vibe, which blends so well with this album.

The same can be said of the star-studded opening track “Monster in Paradise” which features Tyler Bates, Milkie Way, Dave Lombardo, and saxophonist Tim Cappello.It’s also a massive undertaking, asking for just over an hour of your time which is a big ask; the good news is, that Gunship mostly justify the runtime, but there’s definitely room to trim back some of their more egregious excesses. GUNSHIP is an entity that has, since the first moment that I heard them, continually captured my imagination through their songs, aesthetic, and ability to be unique amidst a host of synthwave acts that rely too heavily on a single aspect of this burgeoning scene. I think Technoir 2 was ruined by the chorus from the second singer and many of the other tunes are just too much bubble gum for me. Maybe it’s the beats, the industrial overtones, synth’s irrevocable connection to horror movies, or something else entirely.