Album Review – Half Men, Half Sympathy by Race (Chaotic Pop Records, Faster Records and Subjangle)
Those of you who have been sturdy enough to follow Janglepophubs’ amateurish chunterings and disastrous grammar will know that I have been gushing praise upon the new Chaotic Pop Records and especially their ‘finds’ of acts such as Anti, Anselmus, The Cuddly Strum, and The Rosebuds Riot.
Label founder Eko Sutrisno (also founder of the Shiny Happy Records cassette label) also gifted Indonesia’s Race to the jangle-pop community with the Candles/Begone single of October 2023, which I gushed about to such an extent that I think he felt compelled to ask if our Subjangle label would like to collaborate on the release of this debut Half Man, Half Sympathy album that he was releasing with the new Faster Records cassette label (sorry, but not sorry Eko, for gatecrashing the party)!
However, Race are certainly worthy of a ‘fanboy gushing’ that is so unseemly for a 50-something supposed adult like myself with a sound that cruises at perfect 1980s anglo-indie-pop mid tempo in Them Yearning, Meddler, Four Past Nine, and Pink Turns Blue as they juxtapose the resonant chiming jangled riffs of the early The Clean with a fey, perfectly disinterested vocal delivery that is so essential to the best of Indonesian indie-pop.
The sound becomes more subdued in After Laughter, Caress, and Candle as the melancholic dulcet of acts such as Brighter and the recent Shopfires output adds a different kind of beauty to the album and shows a genuine appreciation of what made labels such as Sarah Records ‘work’ all those years ago.
No doubt this superb Race act, Chaotic Pop Records, and Faster Records will move on without me, but I will probably still be celebrating my small involvement in this Half Man, Half Sympathy for a lot longer than they would ever imagine.
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