Album Review: Antipole - Perspectives II (2020)

Antipole’s Perspectives II was released in early April, just a few weeks after the entire planet was forced into an unprecedented lockdown period thanks to the perils of Covid-19, and as the title would suggest, it’s a sister release to Perspectives (2018). 

But where Perspectives revisited and reconfigured Antipole work from the Northern Flux album (2017), Perspectives II offers up remix takes on the band’s 2019 album, Radial Glare. Well, more or less - there’s a couple of exceptions: ten of the eleven tracks from the source album feature, while a couple of additional tracks dig deeper into the band’s archives.

What is most important in all of this is that Perspectives II hits the same giddy high watermark established by all of the aforementioned releases, and like Radial Glare itself, its an intoxicating journey into melodic, hypnotic coldwave.

If I’ve been mildly critical of Antipole’s past work on account of it being a little too retro or derivative - see comparisons to Joy Division, The Cure, et al - or at least skirting around the periphery of such, one of the main benefits of these makeover releases or remix projects is the range of styles on offer. Some tunes are even darker than the source track, while others are more geared for the dancefloor. And all are less one dimensional than the originals simply because that’s the nature of remixes - multiple sets of eyes and ears are tasked with reconfiguring the material.

In the case of Perspectives II, extra gloss is lovingly added by the likes of ACTORS, Adam Tristar, Crying Vessel, European Ghost, The Coventry, and People Theatre, amongst others.

The ACTORS remix of ‘Decade Apart’ (below), which opens the album, is shaping up to be one of my favourite tracks of the year, while People Theatre’s crystalline synth transformation of ‘1983’ is surely attracting the attentions of darkwave club DJs everywhere.

Paris Alexander’s deft production hand was all over the original album, and it remains a feature here. Of the two non-Radial Glare tracks, Alexander adds some standalone love to ‘Please Let Me Sleep’, featuring Eirene, which harks back to Northern Flux, although I’m less sure about the origins of ‘Coral Joy’ (Caidas Libres Remix), which I suspect might actually be older than anything else found on Perspectives II.

Strongly recommended for fans of post-punk, darkwave, coldwave, shoegaze, synthpop, and everything else in between.

You can grab a copy of the album from Antipole’s Bandcamp page here.