At the increasingly crowded juncture where coldwave and goth-leaning post-punk intersect, you'll find Portland quartet Vacant Stares. On Vacant Stares releases, morose-guy vocals droop over punchy and peppy drum-machine beats while a guitar chimes and billows cavernously and a bass flexes like Peter Hook in a fugue. This early-’80s sound has burgeoned again in the 2010s, proving its downcast quasi-danceability has enduring appeal for people of every generation. Vacant Stares are yet another newish group pumping vitality into this brooding subgenre. by Dave Segal