Metronomy album review

The English Riviera
4/5
From the uncompromising debut album Pip Pain (Pay Back the £5,000 You Owe) to the quasi-concept follow-up Nights Out, Metronomy’s bizarro bedroom pop boasts devil in the ear-wormy details: a demented squelchy synth, unexpected sax and euphoric falsetto refrains. And don’t get us started on the videos (dancing badgers, pigeons in bumper cars). And so to Mr Joseph Mount’s – for he is Metronomy – first foray from the bedroom to the studio. Certainly his third album has a widescreen feel not present previously. Now relocated to Paris, The English Riviera is Mount’s love letter to the south-west coast, reimagined and gilded. Surprisingly, it is his most traditional work, but he’s also produced some of his most beautiful songs, including ‘Everything Goes My Way’, a sumptuous duet; and ‘She Wants’, a darkly sweet insomniac’s song to his slumbering lover. Best of all, though, is the shimmering disco-funk and bounding bass of ‘The Bay’.