When a synth-pop track lands in my inbox, it only has to pass one test before it gets anywhere near our playlists or reviews. It has to sound like it could have been hiding on a John Hughes soundtrack while some emotionally constipated teenager drives home with the windows down after fucking up his entire love life. DECO’s ‘Driver’s Seat’ made the grade before the chorus was over. The synths have that glossy 1980s glow while the guitars keep the whole thing moving. Then a sax solo turns up because apparently this band understands the assignment better than half the people currently mining that glitzy decade for content. It sounds huge and still feels human, which is harder than it looks.
DECO frame the song around a late-night drive with a full-blown adulthood crisis riding shotgun. Max Kendall sings, “It took time to find my way / And a little bit of self reflection / I’m beginning to wonder if I missed the point of life,” which is a very efficient way to ruin my evening because that thought has arrived uninvited while I was doing something as glamorous as buying toothpaste. The track keeps all that existential shit moving. Bright synth-pop gives the anxiety somewhere to go, while the guitar makes sure nobody gets stranded inside his head for too long.
Advertisement
The chorus is where the metaphor starts doing real work. “I’m in the driver’s seat now / With the windows down and I’m / Heading for the open road / I don’t know which way it goes.” He finally has control and still has no fucking clue where he is headed. That feels painfully familiar. Adulthood loves handing you the keys and then acting shocked when nobody bothered to include directions. “But the wheels keep coming off / I just gotta keep things running” turns that panic into motion. Sometimes keeping the whole thing moving is the only available plan.
Things get shakier in the second verse when he admits, “Take a minute / Hit the brakes / Rabbit in the headlights / Thinking about the good times.” That rabbit image catches the freeze beautifully. You can be moving forward and still get mentally clotheslined by everything behind you. Then he drops “And I’ve been living in a simulation,” which sounds dramatic as hell until you remember how many people spend years following a life plan they never consciously chose. Career and relationship decisions can pile up while you are busy assuming adulthood came with instructions. Then one day some of that shit starts looking suspiciously borrowed.
Advertisement
What I like most is how DECO let uncertainty feel strangely freeing. Max has said the song came from those moments when “the wheels keep coming off” and you start questioning where you are actually heading. His answer is movement. The route can stay blurry for a while. There is something hot about admitting you are lost and deciding you still have enough gas to see what happens next. Nobody needs to sit on the fucking floor and turn every wrong turn into a personality crisis.
That cinematic quality fits DECO ridiculously well. The Nottingham synth-pop band have built their sound around glossy 1980s references and modern pop scale, and ‘Driver’s Seat’ feeds directly into their forthcoming second album, Dreamhouse. Elle Magazine once called them “Infectious indie-synth pop that’s set to go huge. See ’em now, brag you were there at the start in years to come.” The quote feels especially appropriate here because DECO make private doubt sound big enough to blast through a car stereo with the windows down. Their Dreamhouse campaign has carried that same sense of scale into live shows and the interactive Virtual Dreamhouse, where fans were given an early listen to the track.
My John Hughes test usually catches artists trying way too hard to cosplay 1987. ‘Driver’s Seat’ passes because DECO use the nostalgia to make the feeling bigger. They take the very adult experience of having responsibility without certainty and give it the kind of closing-scene rush where the road ahead can stay unresolved for a few more miles. The wheels may keep coming off. Fuck it. Keep driving.
