Label: Columbia
Released:Â 9th February 2024
In the near-decade since he emerged as a fresh-faced songwriting prodigy with his iconic debut single ‘Brazil’, Declan McKenna has continued to evolve at a staggering pace to become one of the most dynamic and creative pop artists around. His debut ‘What Do You Think About The Car?’ was his incendiary and socially and politically charged opening statement, while 2020’s ‘Zeros’ was a dizzying collection of ambitious and theatrical art-pop that aimed firmly for the stars in its spacey sense of exploration. In 2024, Dec is firmly established and beautifully at peace with himself and his artistry, and he’s eager to explore all of his weird and wonderful musical flights of fancy on the evocative, surreal sonic dreamscapes of ‘What Happened To The Beach?’.
It’s immediately clear this is a different kind of Declan album. It’s still rooted in his whipsmart song songwriting and lyrical wordplay but is instead working from a more varied and textured sonic palette encompassing found sounds, lo-fi weird electronics and subtle glitches, bloops, beeps and crackles to give it a very distinct vibe in his discography. The woozy, beatific glitch pop of opening track ‘Wobble’ is an alluring entry point into an album to really immerse yourself in.
There are still plenty of rabble-rousing Declan bangers here, like on the headlong rush of single ‘Nothing Works’ and song of the summer 2023 ‘Sympathy’ as well as the discordant thrash of ‘The Phantom Buzz (Kick In)’, but these tracks largely exist alongside some of the most languid and blissful music Declan has created.
There’s a conceptual quality to the album similar to ‘Zeros’, but, in contrast to the questing space exploring odysseys of that album, ‘What Happened To The Beach?’ is more abstract and diffuse in its intentions. It’s playful and loose. There’s no lyrical polemic here; you won’t find a ‘British Bombs’, but that makes it all the more compelling as you find different ways to enjoy its magpie-like sonic tapestry.
Towards the end of the album is perhaps the best song Dec has ever written: penultimate ballad, ‘It’s An Act’. A heart-stopping piece of emotional vulnerability in the middle of an album that can be quite odd and surreal, it’s a landmark moment for an artist continuing to scale the greatest of heights.
When Dork asked Declan to describe the album to us in three words back in our cover feature last year, he said it was ‘intimate, messy and wobbly’. A perfect way to encapsulate a record of quirky charms and sonic playfulness. We’ve got another three words we can use to define it, though: Really Very Good.
