Singer and multi-instrumentalist Ian Richard Devaney was at a dead end with his band Static Jacks when he heard the song Electricity by
Orchestral Maneuvers In The Dark in his father's car. It was the starting point for his new band Nation Of Language, with his friend Aidan Noell (synthesizer and vocals) and Alex MacKay (bass). After Introduction, Presence (2020) and A Way Forward (2021), the trio
… from Brooklyn is on album number three with Strange Discipline. As on its excellently received predecessors, Nation Of Language once again does not bother with musical influences. Besides OMD, you can hear Depeche Mode (check out the intro to Weak In Your Light, for example), New Order (the bass loop from the rock-solid single Sole Obsession), but above all The Human League. Especially when the voices of Devaney - also a vocalist in the indie supergroup Machinegum with The Strokes drummer Fab Moretti - and Noell merge. As in A New Goodbye, one of the standouts on this high-quality sample of eighties pop. (RME)more
