The Drums are making up for the time in which they haven’t released any remixes for their own songs. After that amazing 60s girl group reinterpretation of ‘Let’s Go Surfing’ done by The Raveonettes, now it’s time for Thieves Like Us to re-work ‘Forever And Ever Amen’ for the dancefloors; turning it into something more 80s, with disco influences, synthesizers and brass. Hot!

NOTE: Am I the only one that thinks that the brass at the end of the song are sampled from that classic Mexican song ‘La Cucaracha’?  

Thieves Like Us

If there is one decade who's influence never ceases, its the 80s. Although sometimes this might kill any sense of originality from the new reverbers, occasionally there's a combination of old and new that works flawlessly.

The American/Swedish trio Thieves Like Us has been on both sides of this game - sometimes you can hear too much of a resemblence of the band they took their name from (*New Order*, just in case you didn't know) - but with their new single, 'Never Known Love', they are definitely on the good side of it.

The song starts just like any climatic synthpop track from the last twenty years, but when the vocals kick in, the hairs on the back of your neck start to rise and you'll notice the Johnny Marr-alike guitars and you feel yourself merging into it's sexy atmosphere and not wanting to leave.

You can watch a video below that Andy Grier, the singer, put together. Apparently he used some Russian movie about a circus and don't ask me how, but it works very well with 'Never Known Love'. Great comeback!

If you ask me, I have no idea what's meant to be going on with the career of the band Thieves Like Us. I think I've had their album (which I'm not sure is an official one) since 07, but I keep seeing them releasing the same songs over and over again. This is one of the cases - but at least it's not a re-re-release of their biggest hit 'Drugs in my Body'.

Really Like to See You Again, the EP, features four tracks - including the homonym song and a different version for 'Desire' - and it expands on their journey through their Manchester '80/90s sound. 'Really Like to See You Again', the song, played with warm synthetic lines, a strong sad bass line and a cold dead vocal. It might me be the missing link in the Joy Division/New Order evolution. 'American Skies' gets groovy in the most dated way possible, and this is not a criticism. While the new version of 'Desire' makes it much more interesting, the ever 'released' 'To Joy' shows that they've evolved a lot since that.

And I think this evolution is expressed in all its colors in this superb remix for Miss Kittin and The Hacker's 'Party in My Head'. If the original is one of those minimalism techno songs that I love to ignore, the remix surprisingly paints it with disco lines in one of the best of the year.

And as it wouldn't be Thieves Like Us without mentioning 'Drugs in My Body' this France based band (two members are from Sweden and the singer is American) asked the French trio The Teenagers to lay their hands on their little gem and the result has a weird drum'n'bass taste. It feels like the band played with all the samples that they have at the moment.  Not great, but quite acceptable.