Tom: Pegboard Nerds! I’ve heard of them! Back in 2014, when one of their sorta-chiptune-sorta-dubstep tracks was featured on this video. 2014 was before drones became mainstream, and that video — and its soundtrack — absolutely blew me away.
Tim: Fabulous! I had not heard of them, but part of me wanted to feature this based purely on the artwork; some more of me wanted to because of their name (Danish/Norwegian, if you weren’t aware, and NERVO are Australian); then I heard the verse and then the chorus, and by the time we got to the post-chorus there was no option whatsoever.
Tom: See! Sorta-chiptune, sorta-dubstep. I mean, they’ve moved on, and I’m sure there’s a different and more formal genre title for it, but yes, this is definitely their style.
Tim: So, I’m not going to excitedly yell ‘HAPPY HARDCORE’ because it isn’t, but that build certainly promises something special and I’m fairly sure it delivers.
Tom: It’s probably the closest you can reasonably get to happy hardcore in this century.
This song starts out fairly sensible, admittedly, but turns to slight ridiculousness after not too short a time. As ever, back to normal, ish, for the second verse, then we build up throughout the second chorus, a middle eight which brings us a euphoric section out of absolutely nowhere, and from then on we’ve a triumphant mess of everything, and it sounds glorious. Am I wrong?
Tom: You’re not wrong.