After one of the lengthier album breaks in recent musical history, Stereolab are bringing us back to their retro-futuristic dream. Seemingly more on top of their game than even their last record, you’d swear at times that this was a lost Stereolab album that they’re finally releasing, as they evade the many stumbles most bands face on their post-hiatus return. Following the buzzing buildup of “Mystical Plosives,” there’s an instantly classic sound to “Aerial Troubles,” almost as if you’re hearing a lost hit, as the band feels utterly sharp in their writing choices, sonic details and harmonies, to make a song that just taps into pop lifeblood. The keyboard tones are magnetic on “Melodie Is a Wound,” bring a little more psychedelic charm in, and blending a nostalgic 60s lo-fi with smaller tones that feel ripped out of (weirdly appropriately) a Melody’s Echo Chamber song. The bumping charge to “Vermona F Transistor” tickles the ears and dazzles us with horns and tremolo, for a song that is as full of bursting brass as it is spacey dives. “Transmuted Matter” dances in its delicious riffs, letting you get lost in a half dozen synth and marimba lines, and pulled through the fog by the mystifying vocals.
A lo-fi twang opens up into a glowing wail of summer on His His’s latest track, with a sunset feeling baked right into the track itself. The vocals rasp perfectly to the crackling tone of the mix, with every guitar line feeding into this more by almost peaking as the track seems to narrowly expand its limits moment by moment. The real power here comes from how subtly every new detail pushes the edges of the mix, and craft the song into something powerfully emotive without ever taking too much attention away from its central story.
While PinkPantheress may keep the more varied sound approach that many mixtapes come with on her latest release, the level of quality here is maxed out across the board. Smoky, intense, but often glossy in the right ways, it blends touches of late indie sleaze and many alternate sides of recent British pop into something totally new. There’s a lush tone to “Illegal” that makes its sultry energy blur the lines between a song of lust and simply a fun night of getting high, giving it a cheekier feeling as you never know exactly where she’s going with the story. 90s dance pop energy reigns supreme on “Girl Like Me” as the beat and electronics boom, and those crisp piano hooks glide over the rest of the production. There is an overwhelming rush of feelings on “Tonight” as the explosive drive and breakneck delivery by PinkPantheress leads you to immerse your mind and body into the smooth mix and its seductive calls. “Stateside” drops a soft-spoken club banger, breathing into the mic and letting the beat and loud synth blare into your ears with force.
The funk returns with a vengeance on this latest release from Smelloship, with all the keyboards and guitars at full force. “Liquid Streets” is right in the pocket in their flawless grooves, and a wallop of creamy saxophone to send you to the moon. With a little bit of “Frankenstein” by Edgar Winter in its intro hook, “Intersmellactic Highway” slows things down a bit and lets things get warmer and more bass driven, as the track becomes a shining display of shifting rhythms. Sitting between a fun jam and the knack of some songs by Masayoshi Takanaka, there’s an ever-shifting footing to “Bossman the Handler” that keeps it fun and light. They save their most suave and infectious tones however for “The Flex,” as the whole sound digs out rich lick after rich lick, riding the groove and charge of the guitars to create a truly galactic jam for the ages.
Easily a “One to watch” of the punk scene right now, Lambrini Girls have shown again and again that their chops are up to snuff with the genre’s best. Fresh, tenacious and unyielding, this record may call to mind the likes of Idles or Priests, but feel all their own and ready to overtake their contemporaries with how viciously they approach their music. The unbridled ferocity on “Company Culture” is contagious, urging you to thrash about while burning down the walls of the capitalist system. “Big Dick Energy” really blows out its riff till it’s this fuzzy roar between screams on the track, and it morphs the song into this feral cry of noise and frustration. The stop and go tempo make the line delivery of “No Homo” hit all the harder and tap into its primal irony, letting its tale of buried intention slowly rise until it’s an unstoppable fire. “Love” rounds out this album with the most cataclysmic drums of the record, allowing Lambrini Girls to go all out in a colossal wall of furious noise in every riff that make the few pivots to softer and more kaleidoscopic production choices land with all the more impact this late in the record, and shows a promise to where they can expand their sound next.
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