I’m not quite sure whether it’s just the effect of rose-tinted glasses, but I do miss the nineties and naughties a tremendous amount. Walking around London, being able to pop into a Woolworths to buy some pick’n’mix, before heading into Blockbuster to rent a DVD for family movie night, whilst the sounds of the Backstreet Boys, A1, or – god forbid – Aqua ring out over the store PA, much to the chagrin of the employees who’ve probably heard the same mixtape on a loop for the past 3 weeks. But clearly, judging by the stylings of AKA AKA’s latest release, I’m not the only one who likes to engage in a bit of healthy nostalgia.
No Place to Cry comes as the result of an interesting conundrum for this Berlin-dwelling duo, who felt a little stuck with their usual dance influences as a result of live music being brought to a halt thanks to the pandemic. What results, in this case, is a tune that delivered me sentimentality in spades, with a tempo that made me think back to Lady Gaga’s Just Dance from 2008, and string stabs that hark back to lots of the nineties hits penned by Max Martin. This all forms the background for a simple and no-nonsense vocal. There are no theatrics on show here, just pure bubblegum-pop pulled into a slightly more modern era, and full to the brim with feel-good vibes – with the focus on dancing all your heartache away.
Alongside all the flashbacks this triggers, No Place to Cry is undoubtedly two and half minutes of joy in audible form, and is a brilliant song to shake the cobwebs and get moving to if you feel like your local lockdown might be getting you down.
You can listen to No Place to Cry on your streaming platform of choice, and find out more about AKA AKA by visiting their Instagram and Facebook pages.
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