Vinyl LP, T-Shirt/Shirt, Compact Disc (CD)
As if the problems on our planet weren’t alarming enough, The Age of the Saucers describes a dire situation where the war of the worlds has already been lost, the alien invaders of Hollywood Burns‘s last album have become our bloodthirsty overlords, and “chaos reigns supreme!”
Not all hope is gone, however. According to Paris-based producer/consummate storyteller Emeric “Hollywood Burns” Levardon, “a small faction of humans have escaped the terror in the sky” and been left to wander a “post-apocalyptic wasteland” like they’re living in the worst space opera imaginable.
Much like a manic video game, we’ve been dropped right in their moon boots, so that we can watch every last scene unfold firsthand. That includes everything from the disturbing combat sequences of “Saturday Night Screamer”—complete with merciless aliens claiming “we are your friends”—to the ominous string arrangements of “Once Upon a Time (in Hell).”
This is where Levardon sets himself apart from other stars of the synthwave set; while there’s elements of ’80s music within his work (effervescent electro and raucous arena rock, mostly), along with a little funk and disco, he’s a film composer at heart. Never mind the fact that his movies will never get made. In the Hollywood Burns universe, epic battles and expositions fly by our eyes and ears the way dynamic radio dramas once did, igniting our imagination with nothing but widescreen sound waves.
It’s no wonder why Levardon’s biggest hero is popcorn movie pioneer John Williams, the iconic composer who’s as much a part of Hollywood’s biggest hits (Jurassic Park, Star Wars, Jaws, Indiana Jones) as the images themselves. The Age of the Saucers has one other trick up its sleeve, too: symphonic metal singer Jerome Joffray, who channels Hollywood Burns’s love of Dimmu Borgir on the over-the-top single “Skylords.” Apparently, it’s about “a guy who tries to convince his girlfriend to be abducted by aliens together, because he thinks they’re gods.”
Because why not right? It’s Hollywood Burns’s world, after all; we’re just living in it.
