IT BEGINS in a swirl, as sounds musical and abstract weave into the sonic equivalent of the build-up to a rocket taking off, the moment of launch signalled by post-punk bass riff whose minimalism only enhances its forward momentum.
‘Spirals’ is an exciting opener to Django Django’s fourth album, setting the tone musically via it’s dance-rock/post-punk/retro-futurist synthesis, delivered with an urgent sense of drive.
Lyrically it encapsulates the album’s key themes of escape, transcendence, and a future where hope is not foolish: “Higher and higher in spirals...Crossing the line that divides us/Been here before, this time we'll make it alright.”
While rhythm is key to DD’s music (going back to the now close to classic ‘Default’ ), melody, dynamics, and a strong hook are equally essential. ‘Got Me Worried’ boasts a chorus that is hypnotic in the way Vincent Neff’s voice weaves, waves, and swirls. A sense of sixties cool as Stereolab might imagine it defines ‘Waking Up’, where the album’s themes are further explored: “Waking up to the fact we're never coming back...Waking up to the fact we're leaving our tracks.”
The gentle, finger-picked folk pop of ‘The World Will Turn’ is as unexpected as it is a treat, while the otherwise lumbering ‘Night Of The Buffalo’ ends with a string quartet movement, hinting at further avenues for this band to explore.
A work for mind and body, one which sounds like a kind of seventies that never was, and yet with themes and concerns that are very much of the moment, the first great album of 2021 has arrived.
