Teleman Brilliant Sanity

Picking ‘Brilliant Sanity’ as a title for their second album couldn’t have been more appropriate for Teleman. The former trio, now a four-piece with the addition of drummer Hiro Amamiya, with its mix of classy pop and 80s bits, finally managed to leave behind the “ex-Pete-and-the-Pirates” tag and create an original style. Joining forces with producer Dan Carey and recording in his Streatham studio, the band definitely wiped off the last scraps of indie-rock from their songwriting, here shaping a neater and more structured sound.

Tommy Sanders’ peculiar voice tone finds a perfect fit in this fresh synth-pop informed by New Wave yet still reminiscent of Britpop. Thus, if the opening ‘Dusseldorf’ sounds like a mash-up between the Buggles and Blur, hints of Talking Heads and Roxy music can be caught in tracks like ‘Drop Out’ (with its ‘Psycho Killer’ bassline) and ‘Glory Hallelujah’, while ‘Devil in My Shoes’ takes you back to the great ballads of Cool Britannia. It’s not too cool itself, but ‘Brilliant Sanity’ is that smart kind of indie pop, and Teleman’s finest work yet.