THE HEROIC ENTHUSIASTS “Illuminate” the Gloaming Between Nostalgia & Futurism

Stepping into “Illuminate”, the sophomore full-length from The Heroic Enthusiasts, is less like pressing play and more like opening a portal, one shimmering with spectral synths, haunted romance, and the ghost light of 80s dream-pop. Across ten cinematic chapters, this isn’t merely an album, it’s a soft collision between introspection and euphoria, a glowing prism refracting memory, longing, and neon-lit hope.

Crafted in collaboration with the elusive alchemist Stephen Hague, whose past fingerprints have quietly shaped the cultural DNA of Pet Shop Boys, New Order, and Erasure, the record hums with that same transfixing duality: intimate yet grand, retro in tone but modern in its pulse. Hague doesn’t just produce here; he dissolves into the fabric, a spectral presence whose touch renders the album timeless and strangely prophetic.

From the first swell of synth to the final fadeout, “Illuminate” carries a haunted grace. James Tabbi’s voice doesn’t sing so much as confide-tender, weathered, flickering like a candle in a concrete hallway – while Thomas Ferrara’s guitar work glistens like shards of mirror, slicing through the lush sonic fog with crystalline elegance.

But this isn’t an exercise in style for its own sake. There’s depth here, a quiet defiance, a yearning for connection in an increasingly atomized world. Each track feels like a whispered confession overheard at twilight, a pop elegy for the digital age. Analog textures brush up against synthetic sighs, and somewhere in the intersection, you find something beautifully human.

What “Illuminate” ultimately offers is more than just mood; it’s a moment suspended in reverb, an atmosphere charged with feeling. A soundtrack for those who find poetry in decay and light in the fog, The Heroic Enthusiasts have made a record not just to be heard, but to be felt with your whole, broken-open heart.