Thanks to a well-scored Honda Civic ad, Sydney electro-glampop duo Empire of the Sun (Luke Steele and Nick Littlemore) have placed a Billboard Top 100 hit for "Walking On a Dream", six years after the track debuted on dance charts. The Aussie duo are best known for their elaborate costumes, filming music videos in 'exotic' locations, and for their "escapist New Wave disco full of trance-y gloss and hooky know-how" (Rolling Stone, 2013).
Their second album Ice on the Dune (2013) may have better reviews than their debut album (2009), but their debut was the one with more memorable singles. The title track is undoubtedly stellar and deserves all the belated recognition, but my favourite EotS track is still "We Are the People".
As Pitchfork's Mike Orme notes, the album's grand sense of scale often falls short of reaching the full heights of its ambitions: "Steele and Littlemore both seem incapable of diverging from their relentless quest for epic Meaning, but while some material is about as sublime and immediate as anything either has done, just as much crashes and burns". EotS may lack MGMT's intellectual depth, but they're just as capable in crafting an irresistible chorus that sounds far more momentuous and urgent than what you read on the lyrics page:
'I can't do well when I think you're gonna leave meBut I know I tryAre you gonna leave me nowCan't you be believing now'
The verses aim for a grandiose transcendentalism ('We are the people that rule the world/ A force running in every boy and girl') which can supposedly be achieve the song's addressee can just 'believe'. The song doesn't quite deliver on this premise (although Steele's evocation of separation anxiety in the chorus is compelling enough), but its gleaming, psychedelic surrealism neverthless compels you to dance along in a trance-like, carefree manner (and suspend your disbelief that the force runs in you).
