★★★★☆
Derrick Boyd starts with some real rock ‘n’ roll with not-gone-to-bed-yet swagger. Doing the twangy dance/punk-funk/DIY disco thing that sticks up the dance floor, yet unafraid to grab a keyboard and ensure all eyes are on him as a synth evangelist, the transition from blasé, on-the-road icon to retuning the glam and chasing stardom/stars means timing really is everything.
To make you buy into Boyd and Zoe Presnick’s vision, they impersonate a Parliament-style unit with less pizzazz (though the title track gets close) and more streetwise attitude posting freedom of spirit in its own rough-and-ready way. “Chalk Hill” has got some serious boogie to it, flumed in cigarette smoke and the psychedelic collision “Lost in the Machine” is part freestyled jam, part culmination of everything crashing down around them. The languid performance means seduction is an obvious knock-on, a picture of greasy cool, faded cologne and fumbling groupies where “Where You Belong” murmurs the groggiest of come-ons.
Eighties electro-popper “Goodbye Horses” is a complete wardrobe change that hangs around in cold light, and highlights the restless (or relentless) mood of Boyd always wanting to be into something. Improbably perhaps, it provides substance to when the hazed and bedraggled vocals need back-up. Track by track the vibe looks to settle down, the gruff funk simmered down into a gleam until it becomes born again, notwithstanding the “Hardly Standing” explosion from a shoegaze torpor. An album to get tongues wagging.
File under: Dead Seal, Tussle, Matthew Dear
