Indigo

While Indigo is no groundbreaker, it’s exciting for an album with so much nostalgia to sound as fresh and pristine as this.

Indigo is another block in the impressive body of work Tatum has built over the decade, and it's some of the best retro '80s (but not stuck in the past) music anyone is making in the 2010s.

Tatum manages to punctuate his dreamy discography with an evolved lens, a direct by-product of his decade-long experience recording under the Wild Nothing moniker.

Wild Nothing's endeavor is certainly not revolutionary, but it does provide a musical comfort as it returns listeners to the new wave era. In doing so, Tatum easily expresses his own creativity while channeling a familiar, yet fresh, direction for Wild Nothing.

Indigo pleasantly recreates the sounds of 80s synth-pop, making for another winning chapter in their discography.

While it’s easy to get the gist of every song on Indigo, Tatum never sets an actual mood.

The constant ricocheting of lofty instrumentation with visceral, storybook lyrics make Indigo an at times arresting listen, like the shimmering ambiance of ‘Flawed Translation’. But oftentimes the formula comes up short.

When it gets the dynamics right, it’s undoubtedly a work of considerable skill, but it’s hard to escape the sense that what we’re hearing is essentially a well-crafted pastiche of other artists, rather something truly memorable in its own right.

There’s nothing wrong with harkening to ‘80s synth-pop once in a while, but it seems Wild Nothing have explored every nook and cranny of their current sound. It’s time for the incredibly talented Jack Tatum to move on to something more forward-thinking.

With just about enough sonic variation to keep things interesting, there’s a more pristine, altogether more polished feel to this collection of tracks no doubt the result of an artist who’s getting closer to refining their craft.

A well put-together record, just lacking in heart. [Oct 2018, p.119]

Every song is arranged beautiful but it feels like an accomplished assemblage rather than a living, breathing whole. [Oct 2018, p.85]

Glossy and glamorous, maybe, but it feels like a beautiful-designed dead end. [Oct 2018, p.37]

More complex ruminations are few and far between, with Tatum too often getting bogged down in generic binaries, from the fire and rain dichotomy on “Canyon on Fire” to a fickle romantic partner always “pulling me close” and “pushing me back” on “Oscillation.” Delivered with Tatum's vocals so prominent in the mix, these trite lyrical moments blemish Indigo's otherwise pristine musicality.