Colder makes up for lost time with not one but two albums of fun time EDM bangers

Crossover appeal and the blurring of styles being the desirable marketing attributes they are in 2016, it almost makes counterintuitive sense that Tan would pick this moment to separate and rearrange influences, and compartmentalize his creative impulses. With Again and Heat, his debut and follow-up, Colder foreshadowed in the early ‘00s a noir-ish post punk impression on electronic-led music as he applied a tone of continental detachment to the stark tension of Joy Division/New Order and their era brethren. To some extent Many Colours picked that torch back up and lit fireworks with it, but neither Goodbye nor The Rain seems to have much interest in carrying it any further.

Instead, Goodbye goes (relatively) upbeat and The Rain goes (relatively) downbeat. Goodbye sways with 21st century blues and slow-mo rockabilly turns, and dips into the now-common Motorik well on tracks like “Inside” and “Blackhole Speedway” (inadvertently making Fujiya & Miyagi sound like the ones ahead of their time this time). The Rain doesn’t want to get stoned and dance so much as lean against the wall with a cigarette and scrutinize. It is the more nuanced and compelling sibling, if not the most immediately fetching. It goes for longer stretches without talking, and when it finally does speak, on “Pass and Go (demo version)”, it is hushed and a little bit cryptic: “Planes in the sky / I would catch with one hand / I would fly so high / I would fly ‘til the end.”

The Rain is consistent without asserting structure, content to follow a notion or melody until gravity calls it done. “Market Day” blips and crackles like the overcast dronescapes of Vancouver’s Loscil. The creeping slowcore of “Pass and Go (demo version)” recalls Brian McMahan’s post-Slint project, The For Carnation. Suspense movie ambience grips ever-so-tighter up to the end, from “Maracas” to “Re501 Friday Night” to “Holy Night”, like a darkened lighthouse that still summons you in. If not a whole statement in itself, The Rain still possibly reveals more about its creator than any ther Colder record.