Shattered Love EP (2025)
If you told me Absolute Treat time-traveled to 2025 from the late 1970’s / early 1980’s, I wouldn’t question you. The synth-disco-pop duo’s Shattered Love EP isn’t just a throwback—it’s a shimmering blast of light refracted through eras, languages, and roller-skating dreams. The girls embrace a new sonic direction, intertwining pop, disco, rock, and slinky R&B elements. Think ABBA and St. Lucia combined forces and then were backed by Nile Rodgers. These songs don’t just bop—they strut, spin, and seduce.
The Sun opens the record like a beam of retro-futurist glory. What would prime ABBA sound like if they beamed in from a glossier, sax-heavy tomorrow? This. With its disco dance percussion and a chorus designed for the dancefloor, it’s part neon anthem, part feel-good fantasy. And that sax solo? Criminally smooth. This one begs for roller skates and a slow-motion spin under the lights.
Shattered Love kicks the funk into high gear with sharp synth stabs. The bass guitar is slapping, and those rhythm guitars feel like they’re channeling both Duran Duran and Nile Rodgers from a locked groove. Throw in some gospel-level backing vocals and it’s a full-on dancefloor exorcism. Retro, but never derivative.
Main Street is the track that pulls you into the Absolute Treat orbit and refuses to let go. This was the one that got me. Vocals that sustain for days, hooks for miles, and a chorus that takes you straight to synth-pop church. Picture Annie Lennox fronting a New York City rooftop party hosted by St. Lucia—electric, dynamic, and absolutely impossible to ignore.
The Door continues the duo’s magic act of sounding both vintage and brand new. Glistening strums and disco-rock elegance run wild here, like something you’d find in a Stranger Things soundtrack. Every detail is intentional, but none of it feels overworked. A timeless throwback done with real finesse.
Slow brings the shimmer down to a soft-focus close. Dreamy and weightless, it’s a float in pastel clouds. Angelic vocals, charming synth pulses, and the sense that time has slowed just for you. It’s the kind of track that doesn’t ask for your attention—it just earns it.
Then there’s the glorious bonus singles: Qui j’étais and Le Soleil, French renditions of Main Street and The Sun, respectively. Far from feeling like alternate takes, these versions are infused with a whole new elegance. Qui j’étais hits different in French—same emotional punch, same sonic polish, but it somehow floats even higher. Le Soleil, meanwhile, glows just as hot and radiant, proving that this band’s sound transcends language without losing a drop of conviction.
Shattered Love signifies Absolute Treat’s evolution, delivering a disco-futuristic soundscape that is both emotionally resonant and rhythmically captivating.
