Little Dragon – Machine Dreams (Peacefrog)
3/5
By: Guss Mariot
This album gives you many reasons to pick it up. The only problem is that it gives you too many reasons to put it back down again.
It’s hard to tell if Little Dragon have taken Machine Dreams too seriously, or not seriously enough. Either way, each song, whilst being good in its own way, also has something that really turns you off.
One such example of this is in ‘Looking Glass’. You could easily relax to this song, just put it on, and it will fill the silence. Then suddenly you’re faced with some attempt at a breakdown after the second chorus, which just doesn’t fit the proceedings at all.
Usually it’s the addition of fills, or just that extra layer, that ruins these songs for Little Dragon. It’s a real shame, as if they just knew when to leave things alone, this album would be a real success.
‘Runabout’ is another instance of a track where the flaws are what’s most obvious about it. The intro suggests a song that would fit right in at any disco, and, credit where it’s due, that’s exactly what you get for the section that follows. Then comes the chorus, and the presence of a strange synthetic beeping, which doesn’t add to the track, and instead deflects attention away from the catchy edge the vocals possess.
Machine Dreams certainly deserves a chance, one play through to show what it’s made of. However, it is more likely one play through is all that it will get in too many cases.
Artists in this article: Little Dragon
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