Lately there's been an incredible revival of '80s music in my hometown. Every club in the city has a weekly '80s night, and for a couple of them, it's their biggest night of the week. The kids of Denver are going crazy all over again for the Pet Shop Boys, for early- era Madonna, for the Thompson Twins. Hell, even Falco makes the cut. These people are totally indiscriminate. They really will dance to anything by Day-pech-ay Mode, but if pressed it's likely that none of them would be able to tell you the names of any of the songs.

See, here's the thing of it: there was good music during the '80s, and for a lot of us, it continues to be good music. It's not nostalgic; not a throwback or a gimmick. It's just good. After the Fire's "Der Kommissar" (which, incedentally, was really Falco's first hit-- he was the lead vocalist and primary songwriter for After the Fire) is '80s music, for example. The Smiths' "How Soon is Now" is just music. Personally, I still listen to New Order's Substance about once a week. And maybe I don't dig out my copy of This Last Night in Sodom quite as often as I used to, but I do know that Soft Cell recorded songs other than "Tainted Love." And I can differentiate between The The (brilliant) and Camouflage (crap), or similarly, between David Bowie and David Bowie with Queen. As far as these kids out on the dancefloor are concerned, though, Nitzer Ebb is the same as Alphaville, and the Cure only released two songs.

Maybe it's unfair to start this review by name- checking so many other bands. After all, Orange Cake Mix is not '80s music, it's '90s music. But maybe it's contemporary music for people who don't think of all music recorded during the '80s as "'80s music." It's music for people who don't think good old- fashioned synth-pop has to be jokey, ironic or nostalgic.

Orange Cake Mix does owe a lot to the aforementioned synth-pop superstars, but not as much as you might think upon first listen. There's a human element to Orange Cake Mix that sets it apart from the high- profile electronic music of yore. Microcosmic Wonderland was recorded at home on a four- track, and there's an intimacy to these songs that's largely missing from the new wave singles they descended from. Sure, you got yer programmed beats, jaunty keyboard melodies and swooshy vocals, but there's also a refreshing attention to detail and lack of pretense. Unlike the worst of old skool synth-pop, this isn't just empty formalism, nor is it just the latest phase in the exhaustive mining of past musical styles by today's youth. Like the Magnetic Fields' Stephen Merritt, Orange Cake Mix's Jim Rao is forthright about his influences: there's an earnestness to the way he's chosen to write songs in a certain tradition. The fact that the tradition in question is synth-pop instead of folk or blues doesn't make the songs any less vital or pertinent.

Of course, there's no getting around those influences, either. If you don't like New Order, Depeche Mode or even Chapterhouse, then you probably shouldn't buy this record. But if you do (and if you don't mind your friends thinking you're a cheesy bastard), you're likely to get lost in this album. Possibly for weeks at a time.

-Zach Hooker