Gang Gang Dance - Kazuashita

Rating:

It’s nice to welcome these sonic explorers back.

Seven years is a long time. For a band like the breathlessly experimental New Yorkers Gang Gang Dance, it’s a long time to let their warped creative minds run riot and create something truly bewitching. So, here we are with ‘Kazuashita’ and things are as mind-bending as ever.

Despite the outwardly impenetrable image, at the heart of Gang Gang Dance is an accessibility and beauty. You can hear it instantly in the swelling vistas of ‘J-Tree’ where Lizzi Bougastos’ shimmering vocals bring to mind Cocteau Twins’ Liz Fraser at her most transcendent.

‘Lotus’ is similarly atmospheric while the eight-minute centrepiece title track is a banger in every sense of the world as the band cut loose and amp up the beats.

Despite the beauty found in much of the album something like the meandering ‘Too Much, Too Soon’ could be considered A Bit Much. However, they’ve earned the right to these diversions. They’re Gang Gang Dance. They can do whatever they want.

Where ‘Kazuashita’ truly excels is when it drifts off into the epic. Closing track ‘Salve On The Sorrow’ is a disorienting sonic journey that culminates in a hypnotic chanted reverie. An apt summation of the entire album. It’s nice to welcome these sonic explorers back. Martyn Young