VIDEO AGE - Pop Therapy LP

Label: Inflated / Joyful Noise

On their second album, 2018’s Pop Therapy, New Orleans indie duo Video Age liberally apply the glassy, frictionless keyboards and cheesy affectations of 80s synth-pop. But fortunately, Ray Micarelli (drums) and Ross Farbe (guitar, vocals, production) aren’t interested in simply replicating the unmistakable sounds of the Reagan years—the duo transplant them into a slightly different context, building a connection to some of modern indie pop’s illustrious ancestors.

Video Age have cited Donald Fagen and Paul McCartney as influences, and Pop Therapy nods to more than just the digital production of Fagen’s classic 1982 LP, The Nightfly—it borrows the sly, sophisticated, slightly bent song writing of both stars’ 80s work. Farbe and Micarelli’s songs have enough hooks to capture listeners who have short attention spans, and they also borrow from blue-eyed soul and boogie—though they approach those styles holistically, not by nicking a drum sound here and a keyboard lick there.