SPILL ALBUM REVIEW: NIGHT IN ATHENS – WASTED REFLEKTIONS

NIGHT IN ATHENS
WASTED REFLEKTIONS
WAVE RECORDS

Music is often the strongest identifier we have to document the passing of time and is the closest thing we currently have as humans to a time machine. Some songs can bring us back decades, reminding us of completely random days or perhaps those significant times that built us as people. Sometimes music can take us to places we have only ever dreamed of, to time once passed that we didn’t exist in, or to locations we are yet to go. London-based band Night In Athens has created a truly specific time machine with their newest album Wasted Reflektions. Night In Athens has written an album that transports the listener to the cold and brutalist times of the 1980s, by masterfully manipulating gothic synthwave, also known as darkwave.

Wasted Reflektions characterises the rising popularity of synthwave, by subtly changing the themes and incorporating a more punkesque feel to the rhythm of the music. Songs such as “Pressure” are where you can see that the darkwave album has a more modern feel to it, with the punk influences shining through. “Nightshades” is dark and dreary in the most perfect darkwave way, fully encompassing what the future of darkwave can be. The track is personally my favourite on the album, and what I thought would be a great signifier for what the rest of the tracks would be like, however the rest of the album simply did not live up to the standard that was “Nightshades”. Titular song “Wasted Reflektions” was perhaps the biggest letdown on the album, as the song truly felt like an imitation of a darkwave song instead of being one. The lyrics felt as if they were randomly generated on the internet and did not match the level of creativity that can be found in the other songs.

I believe that Night In Athens had some amazing work on this album, songs such as “Nightshades”, “Frozen Landscapes”, and “Words Unspoken” truly make this album a worthwhile listen for fans of synth/darkwave. Wasted Reflektions is simply a fine album, and hasn’t done anything we haven’t heard before, but there is massive potential for their next album to contain some revolutionary gothic devices, and I am excited to see how the next generation of darkwave artists will influence the genre.

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