Ashbury Heights – The Victorian Wallflowers

Ashbury Heights - The Victorian Wallflowers

Album facts

Release: August 24th, 2018
Label: Out Of Line
Genre: ,
Discogs: Link

Ashbury Heights on a new level

The new album 'The Victorian Wallflowers' is an awe­some sequel of 'The Looking Glass Society' by the Swedish Synth Pop band 'Ashbury Heights'.

Catchy tunes gets a new weight here! Because Anders Hagström and Tea F. Thimé man­age to elec­tri­fy and at the same time, to give the feel­ing of being able to relive an old, recovered favour­ite record. What a won­der­ful combination.

Songs like Wallflowers –  Colourful and versatile

The first track 'Headlights' has a mar­velous hook that you can't ignore! The up-tempo speed takes you on a trip to a Synth Pop heav­en of end­less, glit­ter­ing dance­floors. You might think Dubstep is so 2010, but 'Ashbury Heights' weav­ing a few Dubstep ele­ments magic­ally into this fant­ast­ic track.

Bright as a super­nova burns the second track 'Firebird'. This fant­ast­ic song was pre­vi­ously released as a lyr­ics video. The video itself is unfor­tu­nately not that spec­tac­u­lar and rather a flop. It's really pity, because I think the song deserves a great aes­thet­ic­ally pleas­ing music video.

The future is just a word, I'm ignor­ing every warning
Lyrics from 'Firebird' by Ashbury Heights

If you thought that only 'Pet Shop Boys' could cre­ate long song titles, then 'Ashbury Heights' will teach you a bet­ter one with the track 'If You’re Shooting With Your Left It Means The Right Side Is Working'. The mood in this song is bleak and depress­ing, but also damn cap­tiv­at­ing. A wel­come break after the first two Synth Pop anthems.

The song 'Ladders' takes a bit of time before it really takes off. But at about 1 minute 30, it catches you like light­ning and not only the hip res­on­ates. The struc­ture of the song is very ener­get­ic.

The 80s are back

Do you remem­ber the cheesy teen com­edy 'Weird Science'? The title track from the movie was made by 'Oingo Boingo' and had the same name. Strongly inspired by this 80s clas­sic is at least the lyr­ic­al phon­et­ics in the chor­us. If you hear it you will know what I mean. However, this is great com­bined with almost 90s Eurodance Beats and Acid Samples.

Ashbury Heights - Promo photo 2018
Ashbury Heights – Promo photo 2018

It is the diversity that makes life col­our­ful. Does not really sound like Goth, but I can say that at this point. Because every oth­er song on 'The Victorian Wallflowers' is unique and very dif­fer­ent from the pre­vi­ous track. This also applies to the song "Missing Mr Marchie". The sound melody hov­ers some­where between hope and sad­ness. Furthermore, its made with a sweet, dreamy injec­tion of sounds that leaves no heart untouched.

'Waiting For The Fall' goes straight to the front and calls for dan­cing. No com­plic­ated song struc­tures dis­turb this track that was cre­ated for the dance floor. A great upbeat tempo with fant­ast­ic duet vocals and a lot of buzz in the lower fre­quency range. Start to dance now!

'Tomorrow Is Dead To Me' is already a strong announce­ment. A tee­ter­ing beat and techno-like hi-hats make the song on the album extraordin­ary. The super strange sound­ing bridge is won­der­ful and hard to describe. Fairground-like dub­step at the bump­er car ride might hit it. If you know a bet­ter descrip­tion, write it in the com­ment sec­tion below. But don't be scared, because the whole thing is packed in a great Synth Pop song.

The dark side of Ashbury Heights

Like a hor­ror movie, the song 'Long Lost Dead And Gone' begins. The dra­mat­ic com­pos­i­tion and set­ting are almost oblig­at­ory. In the back­ground, you can hear a tick­ing grand­fath­er clock, which gen­er­ates a cer­tain intens­ity due to its con­stant tick­ing. Only the chor­us lifts the dark mood up a bit but nev­er gets too euphoric.

The first few seconds of 'Domino' remind me strongly of the naive, early sound con­structs of 'Depeche Mode'. Right away, a bit of nos­tal­gia spreads out on me. But the song clev­erly man­ages to turn into mod­ern­ity with a pump­ing bass beat.

'The Mess I'm In' sounds like a mod­ern lament. Peppered with many var­ied pas­sages and dynam­ic changes, 'Ashbury Heights' chal­lenges us to think ahead of the usu­al learned Synth Pop sound. Because here again many dif­fer­ent ele­ments mix with catchy Synth Pop sound. Despite the typ­ic­al style, mono­tony nev­er arises.

Everything was torn apart right from the start
Lyrics from 'The Mess I'm In' by Ashbury Heights

With the extremely bleak, mel­an­choly bal­lad 'Corridor' brings us Tea F. Thimé back on the hard ground. Between the aur­al tragedy of Kate Bush's 'Running Up That Hill' and rough Dubstep trans­itions ala 'Skrillex', the track drills through your inner­most pith.

Until the last song 'Journey' the album shows no weak­nesses. I'm excited. With a breezy, light­weight Synth Pop hit, 'Ashbury Heights' fin­ish their fourth and prob­ably best stu­dio album yet.

Ashbury Heights remains true to its high quality standards

'The Victorian Wallflowers' is a must-have in 2018 for those who love Synth Pop. Here 'Ashbury Heights' have cre­ated a mile­stone in their career so far. Definitely, the album will take a high place in the best Electrozombies albums 2018. Congratulations!

If you already had a chance to listen to this mas­ter­piece, you can write your own track by track review with star rat­ing in the com­ments. Check out this new fea­ture now!

By the way, this album also made it into our art­icle ‘The best Synth Pop and genre-related albums 2018‘. Read now.

Track By Track Rating

Ashbury Heights - The Victorian Wallflowers
Ashbury Heights – The Victorian Wallflowers
Headlights
Firebird
If You’Re Shooting With Your Left It Means The Right Side Is Working
Ladders
Science
Missing Mr. Marchie
Waiting For The Fall
Tomorrow Is Dead To Me
Long Lost Dead And Gone
Domino
The Mess I'm In
Corridor
Journey
Recommend
Headlights
Firebird
Waiting For The Fall
Weak
(Nothing to report here)
4.2
Awesome