Unicorn - Gunship

"Unicorn" is just a very synthwavey album. Gunship stick to their guns (pun intended), and they stick well.

It's not the most innovative project ever, but Gunship's latest record strives for a very traditional synthwave aesthetic, and it succeeds. Well, I suppose it's not exactly the most difficult concept to achieve, but Gunship do it well nonetheless, as they have been doing for years. Their latest project "Unicorn" refuses to budge in that regard—it's cheesy, it's futuristic, it's ever so slightly cyberpunk, and it makes you feel like you want to drive an '80s Lamborghini Countach into a neon-filtered sunset. Such is the nature of synthwave, and Gunship make fully certain their production is squeaky clean to boot, exercising bright synth runs and cinematic basslines to bolster their rather stereotypical romance narratives and steamy, futuristic club vibes. But what arguably carries this record is the vast array of features on it; for starters, Gunship deploys a plethora of vocal features, mixed in with their own singing—a boon, for sure, considering that vocals remain the focalizing element of every single track in "Unicorn's" 14-song tracklist, lacking any structural intro, interludes, or outro. The most notable feature, however, comes from Tim Cappello, who alone features in 4 separate tracks, bringing his killer sax solos to wherever Gunship can fit them in—and trust me, these solos are welcome at pretty much any point during the LP's runtime. Synths, sax and singing all hold up very well throughout the first half of the album, from darker and more cinematic cuts like "Ghost", to brighter anthems like "Monster In Paradise", but at around track 9 ("Darkness For Dreams") things start to fall apart a little. It's not that Gunship's production suddenly becomes egregious, nor is it the vocals suddenly becoming egregious, but it's just that "Unicorn" starts to become very monotonous; arguably the most egregious sin of all. The final 6 tracks do very very little to support the back section of the project, and whilst they don't completely trash the atmosphere the first half builds up, they also don't really do anything with it. Ultimately, Gunship fail to justify the work they did in the initial movement.

To re-emphasize, however, "Unicorn " is not terrible. Gunship don't really do anything terrible, they just don't attempt to innovate much. And whilst it works well for the first half of the album—playing into the beloved tropes of the synthwave aesthetic—they seem to lose their stride in the second half, and suddenly the project becomes far less engaging. Whilst I commend the overall vibe of the record, and the addictive synth lines Gunship weave through their project, "Unicorn" isn't really a holistic project I'd choose to return to.