De Lux - More Disco Songs About Love

De Lux
More Disco Songs About Love
2018
Spotify

The thing about LA based electronic duo De Lux's last album was just how much it sounded like Talking Heads. I mean Sean Guerin, the lead singer for De Lux, sounds so much like David Byrne at times it's shocking. I brought this up on their last album as well, but this time for some reason it feels more odd. More Disco Songs About Love feels really evocative of bands like Holy Ghost!, !!! and Cut Copy, not necessarily straight disco, but dance music with a bend towards the funky. The last album made a point to put four on the floor in almost every track but this record is more varied with diverse production. For an album that is supposed to be about love the majority of the tracks focus on trying to make it in the music business and the struggle to just pay rent. They are really reaching for a sound and a vibe that they never really quite get to. The record feels clunky, mostly because of the lyrics. The instrumentals here are bright disco-esque tracks but feel like background music most of the time. De Lux tend to get too heady for their own good, trying to delve into deep thoughts while surrounding the words with dance music but this only comes across as more confusing and weird. What this album really shows however is how electropop has slid in the past couple of years. The genre was at the top of it's game with hit after hit coming out, the evocative 80s sound was everywhere, but now it seems like this sound doesn't work as well as it used to. De Lux may have one of the more distinct voices in the genre but there is nothing that really grabs you on this record.

The thing that I am trying to articulate is how an album can be pretty good, but nothing that you would end up going back to. With Generations there were some hits, and some interesting things going on, but this record feels like more of the same without the cutting lyrics. This feels like territory we have gone to before and thus it is so much less interesting. "Music Snob" is so heavily Talking Heads influenced that it is almost painful. The song is so cluttered and so varied that nothing about it sticks. I couldn't tell you one lyric, or one idea coming out of this song because De Lux are throwing so much at the wall. It even features Guerin's mother talking about Crepes in French at the end just in case it wasn't heady enough for you. On this record it seems like De Lux feel they know better than their audience, and that arrogance really lets the album down. "Guys Just Want to Have Pleasure" with it's Prince-esque guitar line should be better but their ideas in the song are so fucking stupid and the song is so fucking repetitive it is enough to drive you nuts. I was hoping I would like this record more, because I do enjoy De Lux, but this is just not the album.

5.0 out of 10