Collegiate Times

After months of blogs posting and re-posting the only single off the album to steadily build hype surrounding his forthcoming release, California-native Justin Vallesteros (working here as Craft Spells) released his debut album, “Idle Labor,” late last month on Captured Tracks. Contagiously poppy and hazily retro, Craft Spells delivers on most of the buildup that led up to the release of the record.

Home to bands like Wild Nothing, Beach Fossils and now Craft Spells, Captured Tracks has emerged as one of the preeminent labels for melancholy, dreamy ’80s-inspired pop music that tends to be made by lone artists putting together infectious jams that oscillate between themes of romance and loneliness, gloom and cheer. Craft Spells fits the mold quite well, conjuring up a sound that is on one hand sad and lonely, while on the other is joyful and danceable.

Luckily for listeners, Vallesteros tends to favor the sheen and thump of the synthesizer and drum machine, resulting in an album full of songs that lend themselves more to the dance floor than anything else. Drenched in reverb, Vallesteros’ vocals are thick and washed out, really letting the beats and synthesized tones take the forefront of the mix. Even songs such as “Given the Time,” in which the mood seems to come from a darker place, maintain the pop coating found on dance jams like “After the Moment.”

Although, this isn’t a purely electronic album comprised of just a synthesizer and programmed beats. Guitars shape blissful melodies atop the shiny synth notes, weaving intricate rhythms through programmed and live drumming. Songs like “Party Talk” and “Beauty Above All” best represent the careful balance between clear guitar lines and shimmery, dreamlike synthesizers. The mixture of organic and artificial sounds helps achieve the sound so commonly associated with the best of the ’80s pop songs.

Aside from sometimes being overly saccharine, the only fault found with “Idle Labor” is that perhaps it does not push enough against its own genre’s boundaries to look for places where new things might be found. Craft Spells gets the glimmery ’80s sound down to a T, but it would have been interesting to see Vallesteros take in a few more eclectic influences and see how they could be worked into the end product.

Although it remains to be seen if Craft Spells will take off in quite the same way Wild Nothing or Beach Fossils has, the most exciting aspect of this album is the high level of potential found in its craftsmanship. For “Idle Labor” being the first release from Craft Spells, the album shows a degree of experience and maturity that seems to promise great things for the
future.

A version of this article appeared in the Apr 12 issue of the Collegiate Times.