Once upon a time – the summer of 2013 to be exact – brothers Howard and Guy Lawrence were head and shoulders above the various architects of pop-house dominating the British music charts. As Disclosure, the Lawrence brothers managed the seemingly impossible feat of binding the voguish sounds of underground dance music (hints of deep house; deft strands of UK funky; curdled garage) with the accessibility of mainstream pop. That it was wildly and commercially successful – their debut, 2013’s Settle, sold 44,633 copies in its first week and was certified platinum a year after its release – was an unprecedented bonus. In their wake, a vast number of imitators tried to get in on Disclosure’s success. However, it was widely assumed, even amongst dance music purists and the duo’s detractors, that when they returned with a new album they would be sure to take back the title as kings of pop-house. Yet that might not completely happen. Their second album, Caracal, opens with Nocturnal in which the thumping heartbeat of a bass drum introduces a fairly dour, reflective mood. It is later joined by an arpeggiated synth line, heralding not the sound of euphoric house but slick 80s pop. In fact, a certain listener might start tapping their foot, nodding their head in time, ready to bust out, “I got my eyes on you, you’re everything that I see, I want your hot love and emotion endlessly.” It sports a guest spot from the Weeknd’s Abel Tesfaye, who continues his role as the dark, disturbed 21st century loverman, purveyor of brooding, uncertain electro-R&B: you don’t need to be a psychotherapist to work out that lines like “try to tell myself there’s freedom in the loneliness”, “the truth is you were never mine to lose” and “my demons are blocking out the light and my mind is about to lose the fight” aren’t about somebody high on ecstasy, throwing shapes on a club dancefloor.
You have to admire the brave artist who attempts to distance themselves from the sound that gave them their big break, though Nocturnal ends up being rather characterless. Braver still is opening your second album with a seven minute track without any house staples – no chintzy hi-hats, no dull thuds from vintage drum machines, no clacks or claves – when you were formerly content to occupy much of your previous album with massive floorfillers. Though the tune is somewhat underwhelming, Nocturnal’s lyrics are reliably unsettling from Tesfaye, and brilliantly rendered. The musical backing, on the other hand, isn’t necessarily bad – in fact, it’s lush, heavily decorated with shiny, immaculate synths, and chattering, arpeggiated electronics – but it could have been produced by anyone. It sets the tone for much of the album as it becomes abundantly clear that not all of Caracal is meant for dancing. Masterpiece sees them try their hand at luscious neo-soul, but it feels awkwardly dated. It really and truly belongs back in the mid-noughties catalogue of insipid mainstream US R&B. Omen sees vocalist Sam Smith return to the Disclosure fold after his appearance on their hit single Latch. Those gooey, wobbling synth chords return too, but the pace has slackened remarkably. The kind of high-energy house that invites you cut up the proverbial rug has largely been eschewed in favour of smooching, slow-dancing pop-R&B, although it also features Smith’s best vocal performance to date, miles better than the stuff he’s been churning out under his own name.
But, elsewhere, there are indeed songs that edge closer to 120 bpm. Holding On is a spectacular example of filtered UK garage, a clear sign of what the Lawrence brothers are both capable and adept at. Gregory Porter’s soaring vocals triumphantly open its pulsating strains, covering its marked 90s house roots; it possesses the sort of nagging hook that digs deep into you and refuses to let go. Porter’s soulful vocals also bear faint semblance to the voice of gospel singers who found their way onto house and garage records: something of CeCe Rogers’ 1987 classic Someday pickled in Porter’s smooth jazz sensibilities. Unlike other tracks from the album, you can imagine this one spinning at a local house/garage club night, its pounding rhythm shaking the sweat-drenched walls and reverberating long into the night. Hourglass’ low, humming bass throbs beneath Lion Babe vocalist Jillian Hervey’s honeyed vocals. Like Holding On before it, it dispenses with the populist crowd-pleasing and shoehorns a bit of dancefloor-friendly noodling for a stretch of post-chorus head-banging – a joyful segment that really should’ve been extended or made to make up the rest of the song. If you were the Lawrences in their position, you’d perhaps feel tempted to limit Hervey’s contribution exclusively to her marooned, echo-laden vocal samples that furnish the song.
There are certainly some great ideas brewing on Caracal, but it is patchy. Disclosure seem to be suffering from a distinct lack of identity here. You suspect that Disclosure are catering to their collaborators’ tastes and respective styles, whereas before what made the duo so refreshing and unique was their unrivalled ability to take disparate artists (Friendly Fires’ Ed Macfarlane, Eliza Doolittle, Jessie Ware) and mould them in the service of their blistering songs. Disclosure no longer sound like Disclosure – less themselves than a fairly decent house/garage production duo who are desperately trying to pull off sounding like Disclosure, the kind of music offered by Gorgon City and others. You hesitate to say it but you do feel that the Lawrences have run out of ideas: it is the curse of the Difficult Second Album, an affliction that has claimed many great artists, among them, the Stone Roses, Interpol and the Avalanches, who have more or less avoided that horrible fate by spending fifteen years trying to follow up their magnificent debut and, at the time of writing, still haven’t released anything yet. You’re left a little cold by Willing and Able or the frantic 2-step garage displayed on Echoes, bearing a coda that really ought to be the basis for the song, making the same mistake that the otherwise enjoyable Hourglass did. Magnets makes for an interesting if unremarkable pop song. It isn’t awful, just not particularly good; it doesn’t help that its guest vocalist Lorde sounds like she’s doing boredom-inducing homework. Had it appeared on the playlist of Radio 1, you would hardly notice it, so what makes Disclosure think it’ll make an impact in the club? Maybe that’s a sign of their intentions: it is telling that nearly all the tunes here come adorned, for best or worse, with a guest singer or some sort of lead vocal. If the critics and purists the first time around were annoyed that Disclosure owed more to pop than house, they’re certainly not going to be pleased here as there’s a chorus on every track.
Jaded, however, is a legitimate success. It includes no special featured guest collaborator, just Howard Lawrence’s vocals; it boasts an addictive, singalong chorus and comes laden with inventive, little hooks that slowly work their way into your brain. Distorted, rave-ish synths and thumping bass clobber you over the head with effortless aplomb. The 80s video arcade game synths on Good Intentions temper the beat-heavy atmosphere as a warm syrup of vaguely psychedelic sonic touches drench its endearing waywardness. Miguel’s appearance on the track lends a distinctly unusual finish that is gleefully at odds with the rest of the album’s glossy production, a slight bounce and a giddy jolt submerged under its warm, slightly suffocating atmosphere. Superego is just astonishing. Strikingly talented newcomer Nao’s singing voice (which sounds not unlike former Disclosure collaborator Aluna Francis of AlunaGeorge) guides an excellent melody. The synths are, quite frankly, admittedly very dated – caked in the tinny distortion and retro buzz of 80s analogue synthesiser pre-set modes that recall that same decade’s arcade video games, Boards of Canada, the DeLorean DMC-12 and the oeuvre of Com Truise whose self-proclaimed “mid-fi synth-wave, slow-motion funk” you could quite comfortably call nostalgtronica – and the hisses and washes of modulated synthetic percussion owe a large debt to the sleek, electronic pop of AlunaGeorge. With all that said, you actively want to hear it all again, not something you could say of other material on Caracal. It is without a doubt the jewel in Caracal’s crown: sexy, dazzling and sublime. It sadly isn’t quite enough to save Caracal. The thrill has, by and large, gone. In distancing themselves from their highly original take on an increasingly derivative sound, the duo have lost something of themselves. There’s nothing wrong with a dance act changing their modus operandi by increasing the gulf between what you might call the bangers and the ballads, however, you wait in vain for the exhilarating rush of their earlier material.
Sawdust & Gin 