The Heartrates :: "Midnight Crisis"

The clock strikes twelve and this is nothing new; it happens twice a day. Similarly, the hollow keyboards at the center of The Heartrates' first proper single, "Midnight Crisis" don't quite due justice to the angular guitars and the ripping vocals that crop up later. In fact, initially, it sounds a little like "horror pop", some soundtrack for a late night sock hop at a haunted house that is neither particularly scary nor winningly ironic. However, "Midnight Crisis" turns into a stomping bit of dance rock in the first chorus before giving way like a false floor to another hook, "Goin' downtown/gonna chase you pretty women around." Now, this reads a bit monstrous, you know, in analogy form: Frankenstein's monster is to the woods outside Geneva as this guy is to the Lower East Side. However, "Midnight Crisis" seems to revel in this danger, chasing a dueling vocal harmony from front to back, through steaming chorus and the most vile down beat, or, the perfect soundtrack for that time around midnight when the edge of the night gets a little serrated.