Like Brotherhood, this one hesitates between the electronic side and the band's guitar roots - but unlike on Brotherhood, the balance is now clearly being won by the electronica. The album's major flaw is the uninterested, almost lazy-sounding vocals. With better vox I'm convinced every track here could be a bop/jam. 1 for example is super boppy, some of it could be an MJ track and there are traces of techno/house coming later on. 2-3 are more on the dreamy pop rock side idk, but with the vocals they feel a bit undercooked, tho 3 is slightly better. 4 gets back to the electronic side, and whilst some sounds are kinda funny, the fun(k) is real. 5 is like 2-3, but on the better side like 3, and offers an excellent bridge around 2/3 into the track with great added synths in the conclusion. 6 is a bit slower and feels merely okay until again its bridge 2/3rds into the track. I don't think the conclusion is too successful though with some sounds sounding almost medieval. 7 is very funkey discoey electronic stuff again, and it's really a shame the vox (whislt not bad per se) are not at all on par with the rest. 8 brings back a bit more of the technoey aspects and benefits for slightly more engaged vocals, and finally 9 closes things acceptably on a fun but not quite jammy synthpop track with nicely creamy synth pads. NO have almost completed their transformation into a club band, and I love it, but really they need to work on the vocal side and give it more peps. 3.85
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