Four years on the scene has been long enough for RvP to rid themselves of a few extraneous influences, and as a result their second effort is a much more cohesive whole than 2009 debut Daughter of Sunshine. All those late night gigs have helped recalibrate their sound, and Let Music & Bodies Unite is testament to the gradual toggle of the switch from melody to party. The mess of intertwined, naked limbs on the cover do a pretty bang-up job of capturing the tenor of the album, and the tracks do a much better job of catching their sensual edge than their first record. Perhaps all the pheromones hovering about in the ether of those confined, sweaty spaces of assorted Brunswick warehouses are contagious.
Fans of Daughter of Sunshine might be a little nonplussed at the departure, and the more refined sound feels at times like too self-conscious an appeal for a wider audience. Depends whether you care about that sort of thing, I suppose. Parts of the record are a little grating, and the autotune in Never Die will upset anyone who has T-Pain night terrors. RvP’s steel drum cover of My Discos You Came to Me… – a digital download with the vinyl release – feels incongruous for a song which is, after all, one of Liam Andrews’ reflections on surviving cancer, and a treatment which verges on Weird Al polka schtick doesn’t add much.
That’s not to say it’s a bad release, by any stretch. Like any good dance album, it’s a great, relatively minimalist template on which RvPbuild their live performances. Having seen some of these numbers in the flesh, I recommend going to watch them get freaky onstage before you tackle it.
