Company Book

It might be a sign of how musical worlds have either inverted or reinvented themselves, but the fact that an album that sounds a lot like a late-'80s moody electronic film soundtrack to some sort of vaguely criminal tale is classified as an indie rock release in 2009 is in itself a little amusing. Laden with the kind of staccato synth riffs that call to mind what much of the post-'80s Depeche Mode fan base was playing around with just as techno started to break, Company Book finds T.H. White working in grounds at once quite familiar and surprising in context — given how many acts have embraced the more twee side of '80s electronics, it's rather enjoyable to hear harder beats and crisper demi-Wax Trax!-style industrial rock rather than yet another Postal Service clone. It's a strange sort of joy, though — while White's got the skills and the songs are energetic enough at their best, like the punchy "Earth Is on Fire" and the at times very pretty atmospherics of "Indigo Evening," Company Book rarely impresses beyond its ability to re-create a style and mood while lacking an individual stamp or sense that there's something necessary here beyond the fact that it was done to start with. The occasional guest vocalists add a little character — Oktober Zero's work on "Rekognize Real," in combination with the music, suggests the same sort of brawling electronic anger that characterized the Prodigy's The Fat of the Land — but otherwise this is more of a curio than anything more.