More so than ever before, Phoenix have put out that album that is blood simple, but hiding the details of countless cells, revealing new loops and whorls and edges and substructures the closer and closer and closer you look. And yet, this is a bowl of blood, a puddle at best, without a single artful Cache slash: none of 1901's staggering start-stops, none of Liztomania's vertigous dropouts, none of Love Like a Sunset's bold minimalism. S.O.S. in Bel Air has some serious synth moves, and the title track wraps itself in compelling mysteries, but there are too many songs like Don't, which runs in place at best, its M83 drum bursts notwithstanding.
This might be an album that demands a different kind of listening, that will reveal sentimental angles worth finding underneath its overshined sheen. But so far it seems a perfect pearl, shimmering and gorgeous, but lacking in surprises and character and details to remember 3/5
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