Heartbreak and regret are central themes to Metronomy\u2019s fourth album, a warm, melancholic set of indie electronic pop that shows a group continuing to grow.<\/p>\n
The music is firmly rooted in light electronic music, with programmed percussion blips providing the backing to Joe Mount\u2019s musings on loss and loneliness, adding a human touch to what could be fairly sterile music. Where Love Letters <\/i>succeeds is in its willingness to expand this sound, to add different stylistic touches and a sense of drama to the songwriting in a quest for some kind of muted catharsis.<\/p>\n
Opener \u201cThe Upsetter\u201d is quietly desperate in lyric, tone and closing guitar solo and \u201cMonstrous\u201d is a tradeoff between a cheesy keyboard tone and a gloomier organ solo, the two offsetting in some sort of cheerful Gothic ode to treasuring what you have. \u201cLove Letters\u201d uses 1960s Motown as inspiration, the girl-group backing vocals sounding for all the world like the Supremes underneath a stomping, swirling electro-pop piece that is nearly as psychedelic as the album cover (Mount even borrows the horn solo from \u201cPenny Lane\u201d in the final seconds). <\/p>\n
\u201cMonth Of Sundays\u201d is the best song, utilizing an ascending bass riff, unobtrusive guitar fills (that turn into an extended solo in the second half of the song) and a tradeoff between Mount\u2019s short, sharp, high vocals and the female \u201cNever in a month of Sundays\u201d chorus that provides the fadeout. The song is utterly original even as it looks backward and retains a signature propulsive grace.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Most Immaculate Haircut\u201d is better than its title, pulling from the same well as \u201cMonth\u201d and the title cut but going in a different direction, while \u201cBoy Racers\u201d is a fine instrumental. \u201cReservoir\u201d tries for a \u201860s British Invasion homage of sorts that doesn\u2019t quite work and \u201cI\u2019m Aquarius\u201d squanders its promise, but the only actual clunkers are the simplistic \u201cCall Me,\u201d which drags on and on, and the dull closer \u201cNever Wanted.\u201d <\/p>\n
Electronic pop is by definition chilly, and most purveyors use that digital distance to their advantage, which is why Love Letters<\/i>\u2019 warmth is inviting even as it creates its own world where outsiders may not feel welcome at first. But the willingness to draw from different sources to enhance the music, and the personal nature of Mount\u2019s songs, make it mostly worth the effort.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":45,"featured_media":31877,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"tags":[],"artist":[9363],"rating":[5615],"class_list":["post-43600","review","type-review","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","artist-metronomy","rating-rating-b"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/43600","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/review"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/45"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43600"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/review\/43600\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/31877"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43600"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43600"},{"taxonomy":"artist","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/artist?post=43600"},{"taxonomy":"rating","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dailyvault.adishjain.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/rating?post=43600"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}