Burning Feeling

Electro auteur Steve Moore makes music under a variety of monikers, including his own name, Zombi, Gianni Rossi, and Lovelock. Within those projects, he's covered everything from synth rock to disco-pop to Tangerine Dream-style electronic soundscapes. On his first album as Lovelock, Moore embraces the sounds he grew up on in the ‘80s, which included everything from Thomas Dolby and Stacey Q to Jan Hammer's Miami Vice music. Not that he actually apes any artist's specific style on Burning Feeling, but the gestalt that he goes for is an undeniably ‘80s-influenced one, with a pronounced accent on synthesizers that provide glistening lead lines and fat-bottomed bass riffs with a steady, danceable beat pulsing through almost everything on the album.

Sure, there are moments where one vintage touchstone or another is evoked — the coda of "Don't Turn Away (From My Love)," for instance, brings visions of the Alan Parsons Project's "I Wouldn't Want to Be Like You" to mind (sure, the latter is a late-‘70s track, but it's well within the aforementioned aesthetic nevertheless). Moore's overall aim on Burning Feeling seems to be to craft the ultimate soundtrack to the greatest ‘80s teen romance never made, or perhaps to evoke what growing up in the era of Footloose and Flashdance was like for those who couldn't experience it firsthand. Of course, in spite of himself, he ends up with a (largely instrumental) record that's considerably more sophisticated, atmospheric, and arty than some of his professed inspirations, but really now, what would you rather hear, an impressionistic take on ‘80s electro-pop or an album full of Rockwell retreads? ~ J. Allen, Rovi