Le Cliché is the revived brainchild of Irish born musician and Associate Professor of marketing and consumer behaviour Gerard Ryan and 'Consumer Behaviour' shall be his long awaited album debut. Originally established in 1984, Le Cliché is currently enjoying its second coming as it were, having been re-ignited in 2012, apparently motivated by a large influx of likeminded 1980's electro pop projects being rediscovered and rereleased. The music itself is highly influenced by classic 1980's synth bands á la OMD and Kraftwerk, with all tracks being of a very minimalistic nature, and might be best described as postmodernist electro pop with 'neo-consumerist themes'. Given Ryan's field of academia, it comes as no surprise that his lyrical themes are heavily based upon consumer behaviour and the 'consumption centred society in which we live'. Musically, this record is far from spectacular, most melodies are highly repetitive, pulsating synths occasionally combined with half decent lush synth strings and very basic drum beats. There is little variance in speed of the pieces and most only convey very few musical ideas, with most taking the same melody and synth string break and repeating it over and over for the rest of the song, occasionally throwing in a vocal sample of someone saying something relating to the title of the track. The best example of this would be 'Aquaphobia' where the phrases 'Aquaphobia' 'Fear of water' and 'I can't swim' are repeated several times. I was told that this track and 'Ventolin' deal with more 'personal and intimate topics', so one can only imagine that he has aquaphobia and how it is the bane of his life and that everyday must be an treacherous upward struggle against the dreaded H2O. I'll give it to you that these tracks are personal but are quite out of touch with intimacy, the delivery of the samples are plain and drab, with a few a slivers of emotion on display, which is disappointing more than anything. My favourite track on this record would have to be 'Ventolin', not because of the lyrics, not because of the 'intimate and personal' theme, but solely because this track appears like a lot more time has gone into its creation. The track is laden with emotive synth string leads which offers a refreshing change to the previous 25 minutes. This record focuses on the drab and the mundane aspects of everyday life, it focuses on the ironies of our consumer based society in which we live in, but in the effort to be critical, it becomes the very thing it's mocking. This album is as dull as the consumerist society it criticizes. The sound seems stuck on the fringe of electro pop in 1979 and isn't keen on leaving anytime soon. 'Consumer Behaviour' was released on December 25th and can be bought as a 180gram vinyl from Medical Records.