ENERGY is an energetic album. END OF REVIEW.
Back in 2013, the Lawrence Brothers released their debut
album Settle - a glitzy reinvention of turn-of-the-millennium house and
garage, featuring an array of unique up-and-coming vocalists. While you can
blame this album for putting Sam Smith on the map (which some may view as a
crime against humanity), it also helped kickstart the careers of artist like
AlunaGeorge and London Grammar.
The dance music duo followed this album up with Caracal,
which felt slower and poppier. It had lots of big names on it – but they all
gave big disappointing vocal performances. It wasn’t that the vocals sounded
bad, but that they were simply forgettable. In fact, I struggle to remember a
single song from the album.
ENERGY is a livelier and much more dynamic album. It wastes
no time with ambient introductions, launching the listener straight into the
action with bubbly dance-pop opener ‘Watch Your Step’, and then following this
up with fun Neptune-esque disco-house track ‘Lavender’ and infectious dirty
hip-house banger ‘My High’.
It’s an exciting start, but the record really hits its stride
with ‘Who Knew?’, ‘Douha (Mali Mali)’ and ‘Fractal (Interlude)’. It’s here that
the duo’s signature glossy chords come out to play. Mick Jenkins and Fatouma
Diawara also lay down some of the catchiest vocal performances on the record
(Fatouma is singing in Malian and yet it’s still insanely catchy), while
‘Fractal’ bangs harder than most tracks here despite only being an interlude.
‘Ce n’est pas’ is the first track on ENERGY where the
energy subsides. In fact, it’s a six minute snoozefest that doesn’t go anywhere
(although I respect the fact that it’s the second track on the record with a non-English-speaking
guest – how many chart-friendly EDM artists do that?). Title track ‘ENERGY’ features
some cool samba percussion, but has an underwhelming climax, plus I’m not sure
why they invited back the preacher from ‘When A Fire Starts To Burn’ to seemingly
ramble over the top. Seductive slowjam ‘Birthday’ (featuring Kehlani and Syd) ends
up being one of the more satisfying tracks towards the end. It should have
probably been the closer instead of ‘Reverie’ (which has a very upbeat pace and
out-of-place guest feature from Common), but never mind.
Even if things falter towards the end of the album, ENERGY
feels like a return to form for Disclosure. Their willingness to venture into
different styles of dance music and even embrace different languages makes this
album feel very colourful and diverse. At the same time, there are brief glimpses
of the sparkly sound found on Settle.
★★★★☆
TRACK TASTER: