Finland’s Pearly Drops released their debut album ‘Call For Help’ on November 20th and this is the title track from it.
In doing so, Pearly Drops (Sandra Tervonen and Juuso Malin) are making the leap from music management to artists, having run the Helsinki-based FEF Corp. label (Femme En Fourrure), working with artists including ALMA, Nightwave and Inga Copeland. Their production work for other artists has been awarded with ‘golden’ records and one of the biggest art prizes in the Nordic countries, the Teosto Prize by the Finnish Composers' Copyright Society.
They say, "For us ‘Call for help’ is the key track to set the boldly sore tone of the full album. For us, it’s as if the narrative and the song itself couldn’t decide whether to be happy or not, to be pop or not, to stay or to vanish - it just needs your final attention. Musically it's an ode to the new wave and post-punk of the late 70s and the 80s”.
An interesting observation. Here’s my take. For most of the song it’s case of Blondie meets any of (take your pick) Erasure, Soft Cell, Howard Jones, Haircut 100… And a couple of hundred others. Then in the bridge it goes all New Order before burning out in the sort of death-by-synth overkill you might expect from the likes of Ultravox.
In short, it’s a magical mystery tour of the 1980s and anyone hearing it on the radio without knowing who is behind it couldn’t be blamed for thinking that one or more of those bands had decided to reunite and to get together for one final blow out before the zimmer frame calls.
If 80s new wave is your thing then its right up your street.