Nation of Language

Nation of Language are a Brooklyn synth-pop trio on Sub Pop. Their album Dance Called Memory is one of the better records of the past couple of years — big, emotive, and built for rooms full of people.

This is their cover of Bruce Springsteen's Tougher Than the Rest. They recorded it with a Yamaha CS-80 — the same synth model used on the original. Ian Devaney says a sound engineer played it as exit music after a show and it stopped him cold. That feeling is all through their version.