Austra – Future Politics review: ‘tame stuff’

Released on the day of The Donald’s inauguration, Future Politics could have been a mischievous riposte that fired the starting gun on four years of political pop.

While Trump will surely bring about a new generation of protest songs, the third synth-pop record from Austra is tame stuff: a half-baked anti-capitalist agenda aligned to languorous electronic rhythms.

It’s a shame, because the Canadian band’s concept album about the relentless march of profit-driven technology had potential. Utopia’s big beats raise the energy, though Katie Stelmanis’s chilly vocal doesn’t make her vision of the future particularly inviting.

At least the title track broaches the idea of a catchy tune.

But it’s the past, not the future, that inspires their best moment – the mysteriously titled 43 is rudimentary electronic pop that sounds like 1983.

(Domino)