The 80s-imbued sound of Secret Meadow is a familiar one.

The band’s post-punk via goth-pop tendencies affect the same kind of retro haziness of trendy United States indie bands such as DIIV, Wild Nothing, and many, many others (as well as local acts like Gizpel and Bedchamber).

It’s an artistic choice that does make it hard to assess the band’s charm on its own merits.

Still, context included, the band manages to evoke all that 80s aural-aesthetic through its songwriting.

Slightly less wistful than its local peers, Secret Meadow — a name taken from a lyric by Swedish band Simian Ghost — writes songs with an air of poppy jubilance.

Think 90s-era Cure rather than its 80s equivalent.

Or think of Swedish band The Radio Dept., an even more obvious comparison for vocalist-guitarist Ricardo Taufano, guitarist-synthesizer player Jaro Petang, bassist Arief R. Wijaya and drummer Mulayan A. Viqry.

The band has cited everyone from Nick Drake to Deerhunter as influences.

Same Old Fear, the band’s 5-track EP (mini album) jolts with instantaneous vocal lines blanketed under tinkling Johnny Marr-like open chords.

The basic melodies are simple, as is the economically-restrained rhythm section. This immediacy, coupled with its en vogue presentation is perhaps the reason American independent label Jigsaw Records also decided to release the album there.

Locally, the album is being released by Kubis Records with distribution help from Anoa Records.

Recorded at home, the EP sounds polished enough, with a good dash of live-in-the-room ambience.

Though reverb and echoes play a major part in its overall nuance, Same Old Fear doesn’t feel too shrouded in it, still letting the songs breathe with dynamics and strong melodies. This is perhaps owing to the mixing and mastering of Silent Love vocalist Ganesha Mahendra.

The album opens with “Vexation”, an upbeat track that drifts with washes of echoing guitar lines and synth flourishes.

The straight-ahead energetic tune makes for a logical opener but feels too generically homogenous with its peers to grab the heart.

Not so with “Followed By The Voice”, which — aside from cribbing a very-80s dependably-melancholy chord progression found in the era’s best tunes like New Order’s “Bizarre Love Triangle — does everything right.

The melodies and lyrics — when they can be heard — are evocative and romantically dour. The motoric rhythm section conjures the right amount of dreamy hopefulness, even as the song ends a little too soon and abruptly, feeling like its building to something that never quite comes off.

“Water in the Flowing River”, a track that was one of the band’s first releases, moves as aquatically as its title suggests, dripping with reverb-ish wetness around Ricardo’s vocals.

The vocals conjure up the same pensive homogeneity of “Vexation” with a staring-out-the-car-window propulsive quality.

Fittingly, the song’s lyrics are described by the band as being a “simple interpretation of the concept of time”.

“We’re just trying to describe how time moves like water in a flowing river — the universe’s basic structure that transcends everything,” Ricardo said

“Time builds and destroys everything” he added.

Meanwhile, “Endlings”, another single released to promote the EP, hints at the same infatuated pop direction as “Followed”, and stands with the latter as the EP’s standout tracks.

The title track itself leans on a minimalist, ambient-synth-drive arrangement.

Same Old Fear is a welcome first release by a promising new band.

While the songs could shed some of their more derivative appeals, the best tracks here show that the band has actual songwriting ability underneath all the haze.

The band certainly aims for longevity.

“Sometimes it’s good to listen to these songs without trying to understand what they mean. Like water that flows continuously in the river, we hope that our art won’t feel stuck in a certain timeframe, but that it can expand to every direction, staying relevant to anyone who listens to it,” Ricardo said.

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