Captured Tracks, 2012

You might get strange flashbacks when you listen to the Soft Moon’s newest album, Zeros. Flashbacks to a dimly lit dance floor in the early 1980s, surrounded by black lace and purple eyeshadow — and that’s just the guys.

The Soft Moon is the alias of Luis Vasquez, whose shrieking synths and pummeling beats tip-toe back and forth across the line between clipped distortion and eardrum horror, though that’s not a complaint by any means. Fans of early 80s post-punk will revel in these tracks, and maybe even remember the point in history when the Cure was a perfect mixture of angry and angsty, instead of just annoyingly mopey (*cough cough Disintegration cough*).

Amazingly, Vasquez dodges the pitfall of so many like-minded acts by making each track sound similar enough to be aesthetically consistent without driving the concept into a repetitive 30-minute funeral dirge snoozefest.

Listen below and get ready to swoosh around your black velvet shirttails.