Dan Snaith’s psychedelic streak is diminished ever so slightly on his beat-heavy fourth album as Caribou. Influenced by Snaith’s recent fatherhood, Our Love takes its themes of warm, fluffy love and trusses it up into a beckoning tribute to the dance floor.
Some tracks, such as sunny opener, Can’t Do Without You, sound like the come-down and build-up of a dance track, but without the unsubtle four-to-the-floor payoff. What initially sound like fairly generic pieces give a little more with each listen – they often catch you unawares with modulated beats, chord shifts or muffled production, but these are small tweaks to an already established and celebrated sound.
Chamber-pop eccentric Owen Pallet co-writes and plays violin on four songs but you’d be hard-pressed to detect his influence here. Instead, this collection marks a sureness of one man’s vision, with Snaith taking in a number of genres including garage, house and electronica to create a confident, beautifully produced whole. Our Love is perhaps not one of Caribou’s most exploratory works, but it will definitely be one of his most crowd-pleasing.
BY CHRIS GIRDLER
Best Track: Silver
If You Like These, You’ll Like This: Rounds FOUR TET, Within and Without WASHED OUT, Pull My Hair Back JESSY LANZA
In A Word: Beat-loving
