“Stumble Back to You” by The Limousines has been on repeat around here lately and I am so excited about it. It has an ’80s-tinged sound with a stadium-sized inflection, especially at the beginning of the song. “Stumble Back to You” has a similar auditory enthusiasm to “Little Secrets” by Passion Pit.
Yet underneath it all you still have Eric Victorino’s rough voice, talking about how “before the night is through/I’ll turn around and stumble back to you.”
This is not new lyrical territory for Victorino. Despite the evolution of the band from “Get Sharp” to “Hush,” he often returns to exploring failing relationships between people that are themselves falling apart.
When you first hear The Limousines, it would be easy to dismiss them as just another flash-in-the-pan electronic band with clever lyrics about masturbation (just look up “Very Busy People.”) However, it’s clear that Victorino and his bandmate Giovanni Giusti have deeper, and perhaps darker, things on their mind.
Their second album, “Hush,” has a more mature sound, both melodically and lyrically. This is particularly evident on the two best songs of the album, “Love is a Dog from Hell” and “The Last Dance.” “The Last Dance” in particular is self-aware: Victorino writes that “we could take a vow believing/temptation’s not around.” Meanwhile, in “Love is a Dog from Hell,” he counters glory-days reminiscences of when his relationship first began with a caution that “we’ve gotta be careful because/love is a dog from hell.”
I think that’s why the Limos have a sound that’s important to my generation. We face that same shakiness, that same desire to relive a past era when things were easy. Victorino knows that this is how relationships are now. He pairs this lyrical sensitivity with killer dance beats that help you forget – or at least imagine a brighter future.
What more could you want?
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