Album Review - Metronomy - Summer ‘08
I return after a while! So here we are with an album review.
Metronomy is the monkier of multi-instrumentalist Joseph Mount. He has had varying success with Metronomy with some albums being praised higher than others. His debut “Pip Payne (Pay the £5000 You Owe)” kicked off his success with a fantastic array of tracks, my favourite track of his entire metronomy project coming from that album, that track being “Black eye/Burnt Thumb”. This latest album of his sees him going back to his debuts albums routes in some ways as “Summer 08″ was completely written by Joseph and didn’t involve any other band members.
One thing i’m glad he did away with from his last album was recording on tape. I appreciate recording on tape gives the album a great sound and gives its own charm. But the album felt very thin texturally and was weak on most songs bar a few, such as love letters and boy racers. So was nice to see him (from what I can gather) have gone against tape recording.
There are some gems on this album. The intro track “Back Together” has a funky beat throughout the whole piece and it just makes me want to keep playing it. The Guitar stabs in the verse keep the rhythm really flowing and it’s a very percussive track. Also it tells a great story lyrically and has to be the jewel of this album. 16 Beat is another great track off this album, a bit more laidback than back together but still really funky and has great re-playability.
However the 2nd track “Miami Logic” I find things allready going downhill. This track just doesn’t feel cohesive. It feels like the drums and synth were recorded on seperate days without either musician hearing what the other track sounded like. It’s just a particularly clumsy track.
I also find myself struggling to like the only track with a guest feature on it, that being Robyn. The track is called “hang me out to dry” and it just doesn’t really get anywhere. The kick drum isn’t punchy enough for this track to carry it along. It just feels very stationary for a track with such a tempo and is begging for more synth lines.
Overall, this suprise album is much better production-wise than the last album. it seems like he’s found some reverb somewhere. There are some great tracks on this album, but a few manage to bring down the album. A solid 6/10 for this album.
