Brooklyn's Blacklist channels the '80s on new album (photo by Scott Irvine)
Thursday, November 19, Death by Audio, 49 South Second St. between Wythe & Kent, $7, 8:00
Monday, November 23, the Studio at Webster Hall, 125 East Eleventh St. between Third & Fourth Aves., free, 8:00
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Listening to Brooklyn’s Blacklist, you might start looking around for Molly Ringwald, Andrew McCarthy, Emilio Estevez, and the rest of the Brat Pack, thinking you’ve just stepped into a John Hughes movie. Lead singer and guitarist Josh Strawn, guitarist James Minor, bassist Ryan Rayhill, and drummer Glenn Maryansky, who cite Johnny Walker, Omar Khayyam, and Michelangelo Antonioni as influences in addition to Wire, Killing Joke, and My Bloody Valentine, have seemingly also been influenced by the Psychedelic Furs, Dead or Alive, the Cult, the Cure, and Simple Minds. On their debut album, MIDNIGHT OF THE CENTURY (Weird, May 2009), their big sound blasts through eleven tracks, kicking off with “Flight of the Demoiselles,” which features an Edge-like guitar line and, yes, the word “vainglorious” in the lyrics. “No regrets / no sad songs / every day / pure joy in my heart” Strawn sings. Other stand-outs include “Shock in the Hotel Falcon” and “The Believer.” Blacklist will be at Death by Audio on November 19 with Veil Veil Vanish, Phantasm, and Bella Noir, then play the Studio at Webster Hall as part of No Cover Mondays on November 23 with Atlantic Pacific and Dave Walsh (of the Loved Ones playing an acoustic set).