Tungz
A Good Dream
★★★
HEIST OR HIT. CD/DL/LP
Young Bristolian quartet party like it’s 1982 on their debut album.
Slickly downtempo as Tungz’s fine, J Dilla-meets- Prince single 80,000 may be, things turn ugly in the song’s ’70s TV-influenced promo video, the at first wholesomelooking band morphing into flesh-eating zombies. That’s not where the Thriller influence ends either; the staccato, dampened guitar licks on If and Is Cory Okay? are seemingly cognisant of Michael Jackson’s Wanna Be Startin’ Somethin’. Vocal about their (to these ears inaudible) love of ABBA, and big on Toto-like string pads, synth-funk and lovelorn drama, Tungz are at their best on deftly airbrushed ballad Nothing To Do With You and the percussion-rich Always; songs wherein their evident facility with ’80s sonics serves as garnish, not the meal itself. Self-produced and obsessively detailed, A Good Dream testifies to long, fruitful hours down the rabbit hole… wearing legwarmers.