The dream pop trio’s first album in nine years is a bit dreamy.
Everything starts off quite promisingly: the opener “Snowman” draws you into the album with a hypnotic two-chord groove, before singer Kazu Makino raises her voice for the first time on “Kiss Her Kiss Her” and the song is somewhere between dream- Disco and baroque harmonies rise to pop heaven. Blonde Redhead are also at their best when their voice is in the foreground: the slightly nasal breath, behind which a certain aggressiveness lurks, brings tension into the dreamy songs.
Excessive dreaminess on the verge of falling asleep is also the reason why the album cannot confirm the good first impression. For every highlight like the lively “Sit Down For Dinner Pt. II” there is an uninspired jingle like “I Thought You Should Know”, which is drowned in reverb. The middle of the album in particular sags a bit and invites you to drift off gently. The fact that the trio then briefly wakes up from their self-induced sleep to deliver an intense pop song with a monster chorus on “Before”, carried by otherworldly acoustic guitars, only makes up for it somewhat.
