★★★☆☆
Without wanting to oversimplify and complete a review within the first line, if you like the David Guetta/Swedish House Mafia house-to-chart continuum there’s every chance you’ll be hanging onto every last beat of Kid Massive. Its riff upon riff of faux euphoria meets songwriting with commercial acumen: whether it be through Mark Le Sal’s Taio Cruz-like vocals (which usually guarantee spins and success) or brattish Sam Obernik pulling pigtails on “Yawn,” this has got the big rooms by the shirt collar.
At a concise 12 tracks all of the Dane’s set plays and strategies come with a foolproof safety net. Hip-houser “Get Wild” is in the style of Bodyrox or Kele, “Heaven” rewires Chris Brown’s “Yeah x3” (which scored zero points for originality anyway), and the title track featuring Peyton and “Life is Better” have all the mechanics of a particularly ubiquitous Scandinavian trio. There’s no use in saying that the majority is phoned in and represents house’s current lowest ebb (the punk-funk/biker chick tie-in “The Way Down” goes in because it has to), because although there’s no new angle Massive explores, striking while the iron is hot at a temperature recalculating cheesiness, he will have the club using the palm of his hand as a dinner plate. Plus Guetta could always do with some ‘super-producer’ competition.
File under: Fedde le Grand, Avicii, Lake & Lys