The Forcefield Kids

Passage's music is the kind of electro-new-wave-industrial-folk-hospital-waiting-room-hope-hop that you can dance or die to. The self-produced "Forcefield Kids" is full of distorted lo-bit jiggy drums; chopped-up, backward harps and French horns; distinctive synths with envelopes and filters; acoustic guitars; playful, heavy words; and catchy-ass melodies. Passage capably references and blends a seemingly infinite library of influences. The record is filled with images of invalids, radiation, cold hospitals, lost love, and dreaded, never-ending Sunday afternoons filled with self-loathing regrets. A highlight is the dark pop infection called "Old Aunt Mary," sounding like something off Beck's "One Foot in the Grave." Who would have thought that someone could create a hardcore, new wave, melodious fast-raps record, with sweeter-than-candy indie-pop hooks? "The Forcefield Kids" is proudly and without apology a genre-defying record that just about embodies "the anticon sound."