There are inherent pitfalls for a band when they set about recreating a sound from the past with exacting precision. It’s far too easy for their work to sound like a hollow pastiche if they don’t play with undeniable energy or come up with a brilliant batch of songs. On their second album Was It Always This Way, Real Numbers do everything they can to sound exactly like a band who would have recorded for Sarah Records in 1989. Except for when they sound like they wanted to be signed to Creation in 1986. The order of the day is echoing guitar jangle, vocals that express powerful amounts of melancholy, synths that moan like faraway ghosts, and a rhythm section that sound like they studied every move the Cure made in the early ’80s. They have the sound down dead to…

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