Rapid Fire Reviews: Dance Party But Make It Indie

I have a lot of albums that I'd like to catch up on. So during the next few weeks, which at least look initially like down weeks relative to the heavy schedules of May and June, I'll be covering as much as I can through these rapid fire reviews. Starting off we are diving into some accessible and more importantly danceable cuts from the indie pop and indietronica worlds that I have been meaning to talk about for a while now.

Islomania - Islands

Islands is the indie pop project of Nicholas Thornburn, once a member of a personal favorite band of mine from the indie world of the 2000's, The Unicorns. The band has had a diverse selection of members around Nicholas, including fellow Unicorn Jamie Thompson across their 8 albums on 4 different labels. This is the bands first new album in 5 years since they dropped two records back in 2016, and the era got off to a good start with (We Like To) Do It With The Lights On, the records lead single which has been one of my essential summer indie pop jams. This turned out to be the highlight of the singles even if I sort of like Set The Fairlight's kooky vocals despite it being too long, and the highlight of the album as well. Not to say the record is bad as I find most of these songs to be pretty catchy, with hooks that consistently manage to stick in my head and an array of instrumentation that keeps it from ever feeling routine. One of the things I admire about the record is its extremely bright sound palette, even on slower tracks or quieter verses the record always feels like its right around the corner from a blissful eruption of beautiful sounds and when it delivers, it makes for great moments. Occasionally the record stumbles for reasons far less easy to define. Tracks start to feel like they are wandering aimlessly in the second half of the record and whenever it makes heavy use of vocals effects I think it generally makes these tracks less sonically compelling. These problems are occasionally remedied by a really cool array of percussion and a slick use of hefty basslines both of which the record isn't shy about prominently displaying in its mix. Ultimately these songs aren't necessarily re-inventing anything and I think they are short on meaningful progressions, but I can't deny how much I enjoy these instrumentals and how many of the hooks are still stuck in my head. 6.5/10

Escapades - Gaspard Augé

Escapades is I guess the solo debut album of Gaspard, one half of now iconic french house duo Justice. It's been 5 years since we last heard from Justice, and I agree with many other people in the notion that each of the duo's 3 releases was a drop in quality from the previous, going back to their spectacular 2007 debut album. For that reason I was unsure about this record and didn't indulge with all of its singles, which turned out to be a bit of a blessing when I was introduced to the icy spectacular synth leads on Force Majeure for the very first time as the opener of the record itself. That helps set up for how unmistakably epic a handful of the tracks on the record are, highlighted by the harrowing Hey! which unfortunately features a brief but poorly interpolated vocal samples disturbing its otherwise brilliant sound. There are highlights all over the record even when it isn't shooting for the grandest or loudest sound, the driving instrumental creativity on display is spectacular. Captain and Lacrimosa sound almost theatrical back to back and make the middle portion of the record one of its most exciting sequences. The record does have some inconsistencies and weirdly enough after its great start the first half sort of falls short compared to the back half, but I was extremely surprised and thoroughly pleased by the quality of dance music on display here. This is actually the kind of expansive but still utterly infectious material I always hoped for out of a Cross follow-up and while this doesn't quite reach the astronomical heights of that record it is sure to be one of my dance music highlights of the year and a couple of these tracks have a major opportunity to turn up on a year end list. 7.5/10

Glowing In The Dark - Django Django

Django Django are a Birtish indie pop and art pop band who aren't afraid to interpolate the worlds of indie and electronica into their versatile sound. Their 2012 debut album is consider a very solid early 2000's indie piece and even had what the genre would consider a moderate hit in Default, and I mostly agree with the sentiment that its a solid album. Since then however I haven't had much in terms of redeeming experiences with the band. While I didn't get a chance to review their sophomore album Born Under Saturn it did come off as very annoying to my ears save for a couple pleasant highlights. I was around to potentially review their third album Marble Skies but I had so little to say about its tame and impossibly bland electro pop that I never even got around to it. So it's safe to say I wasn't necessarily excited going into this record which is why I was so surprised to see a lot of indie fans talking about how much they liked the thing. I suspect the reason for that is the records willingness to genre hop throughout its runtime. Kicking off with a dance flavored pop cut before transitioning into something more indie rock flavored with a memorable guitar riff and continuing out from there in chameleonic fashion. Honestly when the band picks up their indie flavored instruments and dig into 2000's style indie rock songs particularly on the first half of the record I actually kind of enjoy their approach. The record grooves really well in those moments in a way I didn't know the band was capable of. Unfortunately there are some dancier cuts here that give me flashbacks to renditions of the bands sound that were clearly just not meant for my ears. The vocals that once sounded so creative in the bands early day don't have the same luster with the multi-layered singing and repetitive almost glitchy refrains sounding more dated than ever. This isn't the bands best or worst record, nor is it among the best or worst records I've heard this year. I would describe it as inconsistent, occasionally endearing and mostly non-essential electro indie pop. By the end of it I'm less sure than ever before what Django Django's sound is as a band. 5/10