Pond – The Weather

The Weather is the seventh studio album. It was released on 5 May 2017 by Marathon Artists.

The Weather opens with a cloudy arpeggiated synth pattern that introduces leadoff track “30,000 Megatons”—an early signpost that points in the keyboard-heavy blue-eyed soul direction Parker pursued on 2015’s Currents. Halfway through the song, filtered robotic vocals tease that Pond is about to follow in the same footsteps, which proves to be especially true for the album’s first half. On numbers like “Sweep Me Off My Feet” and “Paint Me Silver”—both love songs drenched in falsetto and synths—it’s almost hard to tell the two albums apart.

Pond dips into parody on “Colder Than Ice,” with its cliché “c-c-c-cold as ice” chorus and a keyboard bass groove evoking Frankie Goes to Hollywood and countless other 1980s acts who made cheesy videos filled with artificial smoke. Ditto for “All I Want for Xmas (Is a Tascam 388),” which apes the iconic chorus of Bob Geldof and Midge Ure’s 1984 all-star famine-relief song “Do They Know It’s Christmas.” Such campy detours are hardly surprising given that Pond’s work has mostly been about as serious as a spitball fight between junior high students just released from detention.