Villa Cola – She EP

London three piece Villa Cola are not just influenced by post punk electronica and new wave, they eat, sleep and breathe the era. I can see them now at breakfast, bowl of corn flakes in one hand Cocteau Twins album in the other. Off to work/the studio with Pylon on the Ipod and then settling down in the evening with some cosy, early New Order.

On She, their second EP, this love of that era shines through as does the vocals of Ranya Dubé.  Pity she was born about thirty years too late. If Villa Cola were around in 1980 she had been a sure fire star of the new wave scene and the band would probably having a whole chapter to itself  in Simon Reynolds book Rip It Up and Start Again: Post Punk 1978-1984 (see our Top Ten Books About Music feature here) .

As it is, time has marched on and there’s a whole bunch of bands now drawing influence from the beeps, the Farfisas and the Moogs of the time. Even The National owe a lot of their distinct rhythm to Joy division and New Order’s Stephen Morris.

This presents Villa Cola with something of a problem. They do what they do fantastically, using sparce production to perfectly recreate a bygone era. But is that marketable on its own? I hope so, but its going to be a tough old slog. I hope they break through though and get whatever they deem success to be because they are good and She is a great EP. Aside from the fantastic retro production the songs are pretty good too with final track ‘Until the end of Time’ a real highlight for us.

Good news for you is that She can be downloaded for free via Bandcamp.

8/10

by Joe Lepper

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