Music Review: Walt Disco Is Loud, Charismatic, And Wondrously Eclectic

metroweekly.com:

How Cool Are You,” released earlier this year.Featuring the band hamming it up on a skating rink in purposely loud, garish outfits and makeup, it is as punky, queer, and disarmingly fun as the Glasgow sextet themselves.With a stunning EP already under their belts, the band, led by magnetic lead singer James Potter, has now released their impressive first full-length album, Unlearning (★★★★★).Walt Disco comes across as brash and anarchic in both their sound and their ethos, but what becomes quickly apparent to anyone who listens to Walt Disco is that they are not only talented, they have done their homework, too.Proudly copping from glam rock, art pop, new wave and the Scottish post-punk scene, Walt Disco’s sound is loud, charismatic, and wondrously eclectic.

Potter’s throaty, dramatic vocals, which land somewhere between Bowie and Bauhaus, are a surprisingly versatile vehicle for lyrics that range in mood from brooding to manic and everything in between.Indebted as they are to a handful of movements that crested in the ’80s, they avoid coming across as a pastiche of them.

In the best tradition of those genres, they borrow extensively but recombine them to create something that is completely their own that all but defies categorization.Unlearning features an array of crunchy, whiny, and shimmering synths that bring their gothy, punky sound into the 21st century.

They flirt with hyperpop on some tracks and occasionally outright embrace it, getting almost bubblegummy on tracks like the hazy, plaintive “Timeline” or the glittery, high-energy “Hold Yourself As High As Her.”As if to make a grander point about their own versatility, Potter channels David Byrne on the funky, new wavey “Be An Actor,” a track that almost sounds.