Listening to Violitt’s majestic and haunting brand of dreamy alt-pop you could be forgiven for thinking that it was a long lost gem from another time, probably from that much maligned era, the eighties, which despite modern rebranding was paved with such beautiful and exploratory music. Its dark intensity suggests a Concrete Blonde track deemed too haunting for release as a single or a Cocteau Twins work in progress before they drenched everything in reverb and stardust, it mines deep emotions and pursues heartache and wanders along the very brink of despair.
But Violitt are too clever to just play the misery card or wallow in self pity and if old-school dream-pop seems a nostalgic and cultish notion which has long ago had its day in the post-punk sun and pop proper is a form too concerned with playing to the gallery and making music with the widest appeal, the more switched on modern artists have realised that you can take the integrity of the former and the commerciality of the latter to make music which is the best of both worlds. It is a sound which Violitt does better than most and it is exactly why this futurist pop revival is producing some of the most rewarding music of the moment without having to compromise cult appeal for commercial potential.
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