Album review: Django Django

Django Django - Glowing In The Dark (Because Music)

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.

 

Page generated in 0.1968 seconds.