Brooklyn synthpop duo Observation Room reach the emotional peak of their debut album with A New Outlook. Serving as the culmination of Superstructure, the track climbs patiently toward the pleading crescendo of its chorus while preserving the strong melodic instinct that runs throughout the record.
The influence of eighties synthpop staples can be heard in its balance of entimental weight and pop immediacy. Dreamy nineties textures and rhythms soften the surrounding architecture, allowing the song to be expansive without distancing from the personal urgency at its center.
Beneath its luminous exterior, A New Outlook faces down alienation, anxiety, hopelessness, and the fragile endurance of love in a world that grows more hostile by the day. These are unmistakably modern burdens, seen through the eyes of two queer women attempting to make sense of circumstances built to keep them isolated and unsure of their footing.
Yet the song’s plea carries the possibility of connection, making it a fitting conclusion to an album shaped by private feeling and unstable social structures. Superstructure is out through A La Carte Records.
Photo by Timothy O'Connell
ZR