Erasure - The Violet Flame (LP) - White Vinyl

Erasure’s The Violet Flame lands like a rush of bright lights after dusk. Coming a year after the frosty charm of Snow Globe, it’s a straight-to-the-heart, club-facing jolt that reminds you why Andy Bell and Vince Clarke still hold court in synth pop. Released in 2014 on Mute and produced by Richard X, the record tightens everything that has always worked for the duo: precision hooks, clean lines, and Bell’s voice cutting through with compassion and bite.

Richard X feels like a savvy fit for them. He zeroes in on Clarke’s gift for economical melody and frames it in crisp, modern textures that nod to house and Italo without museum-glass nostalgia. You hear it immediately in Elevation, the lead single, which glides in on a glassy synth figure and blooms into a chorus built to lift a room. Reason keeps the pulse running, riding a piano-streaked groove that could have turned a mid-90s dancefloor into confetti. Sacred is the sleeper, devotional in both lyric and drive, with Bell savoring the vowels like he knows the melody is going to stick around for months.

What impresses is how purposeful the tempo feels across the album. The Violet Flame doesn’t meander. Songs arrive, state their case, and pull you toward the chorus with clean geometry. Clarke has always been ruthless about stripping a song to the gleam, and here he and Richard X polish until the thing throws sparks. Bell responds in kind. His vocal brings tenderness to lines that, in a colder arrangement, might read as simple come-ons. Instead, they feel like promises made on a crowded floor, which is exactly where Erasure have always done their best work.

There’s a throughline to their history that this record taps with real grace. If you came up on the stately drama of Chorus or the pastel melancholy of Nightbird, you’ll hear echoes here, but with a harder, clubbier core. The melodies carry that old Erasure ache, yet the overall effect is a late-night grin rather than a mid-afternoon sigh. That shift matters. It gives The Violet Flame a forward motion that many veteran acts struggle to recapture. It’s not an exercise in revisiting old tricks. It’s two lifers choosing euphoria and writing to it.

The singles run did its job, not just as calling cards but as anchors for a set that rewards full spins. Elevation was the obvious entry point, but Reason wears wonderfully with time, and Sacred has that slow-burn quality fans latch onto. Live, these songs slotted in like they’d been around for years, and the 2014 tour made that clear. New material didn’t feel like an intermission between the classics. It felt like part of the main event.

If you collect Erasure vinyl, this one is a no-brainer. The Violet Flame vinyl pressing gives the low end real body and lets the high synths sit where they should, a touch airy without getting brittle. It looks sharp on a shelf next to the bold art of Wild! and the sleek lines of The Innocents, and it sounds like a room being freshly painted in neon. I’ve pointed plenty of shoppers toward it when they come in for a greatest-hits fix but want a studio album that proves the story didn’t end in the 90s. You can buy Erasure records online easily enough, though snagging The Violet Flame in person has its charm. If you’re browsing vinyl records Australia listings or ducking into a Melbourne record store on a rainy afternoon, don’t pass it by. Erasure albums on vinyl have a way of disappearing just when you decide you’re ready.

There’s a small, satisfying irony to all this. In a decade crowded with retro-synth projects and algorithmic nostalgia, the originators came back with a set that felt fresh simply because the songs are built right. Hooks, structure, performance. The old pillars. The Violet Flame isn’t flashy for the sake of it. It’s tight pop architecture that knows why people dance. And it’s another reminder that Bell and Clarke are still, after all these years, fluent in the language they helped write.