When the California indie-pop band Imperial Teen
titled its 2007 album The Hair, The TV, The Baby, And The Band after its members' day
jobs, Hey Willpower was "The Band" in question. A collaboration between Teen's
Will Schwartz and Tomo Yasuda of Tussle, Hey Willpower leaves behind the
Imperials' guitar-bass-drums formalism in favor of laptops, synths, and drum
machines with a playfully sexy bent. (Live, the duo utilizes male backing
dancers, and a cursory listen to P.D.A. makes that sight easy to envision.) But Schwartz's
insinuating songwriting and appealingly mewling voice remain intact amid the
grooves, which split the difference between low-tech, low-affect variations on
modern R&B; and early-'80s synth-pop. And while parts of P.D.A. are definitely
tongue-in-cheek—see titles like that of the new-wavy "Hundredaire" and
the breathless "Double Fantasy II"—Schwartz and Yasuda aren't just
goofing: They end with a yearning, affectionate cover of Architecture In
Helsinki's "Heart It Races," and achieve much the same effect turning the tempo
down on their own "Not Trippin'."