This slick button-pushing take on disco is almost too happy for me. But respect what these guys do as songwriters which makes me willing to give the album a chance. The second song works better for me than the opening track with Tame Impala, who sounds too much like Jamiroquai. The track is more booty-shaking dance floor-moving stuff and less of a song than the first track, but it clicks better so it is what it is. The beat keeps things driving, as RIMON joins them for the techno-powered "Afterimage". Maybe this is what gay clubs are playing these days. If not it should be.
When Tame Impala joins them again for "One Night / All Night' my opinion does not change and they still sound too much like Jamiroquai. The grooves of "Dear Alan" work better for me. "Incognito" is where things start to lean more on sounds than songwriting. Some spacey sounds are hovering around "Mannequin Love" which works better than the previous song, though the grooves make most things forgivable. There are a few songs that are just interludes, but the album is more song-focused than most dance music.
"Explorer" has a pretty heavy ambiance, but enough of a song to work. While it sounds good, "Muscle Memory" works too much off sounds and not enough songwriting for me to feel like it's going somewhere. Miguel does his best Justin Timberlake for " Saturine". The last song features Thundercat, who gets a lot of hype without offering a ton to back it up. This time around his falsetto vocals are not doing anything hundreds of pop singers in the 80s. Though it all seems to work for what they are doing here. Overall this album is much better than expected in many ways. I will give it a 9, making it one of the better electronic albums I've heard this year.
pst628
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