VOLCANO

 Brand new sealed  Album

As Jungle, the London-based duo Tom McFarland and Joshua Lloyd-Watson make feelgood music that is firmly rooted in the past. Interested in the Mark Ronson school of producing slick, digitised versions of disco and soul, they earned a Mercury prize nomination for their eponymous 2014 debut
, and have since produced hit singles such as the strings-laden Busy Earnin’ and the funk-inflected Keep Moving. Consistently upbeat and supremely commercial, Jungle’s tunes have made for energetic live shows as well as perfect background fodder for adverts by global brands like Peloton.

Their fourth album, Volcano, continues the theme, with head-nodding 70s funk breakbeats (Dominoes), wistful, guitar-strumming soul (Back on 74) and euphoric disco choruses (Every Night), all ripe for radio play. It’s confidently produced, but Jungle’s consistency leaves their record sanitised, lacking the grit and yearning emotion that makes disco and soul so enduring. There are gestures towards something deeper –rapper Roots Manuva rattling his baritone at the end of You Ain’t No Celebrity, or the harsh, thumping bass of Holding On – but largely, Volcano trades on Jungle’s same, safe formula. There is little new in the nostalgia of these 14 tracks.

There comes a point in everyone’s life when the draw of LA becomes too real. For most, it  appeals to our more shallow selves. It’s got everything that a person in their mid-twenties with a good haircut could want. It’s got the sun, it’s got the sea and it’s got an endless stream of VIP parties in which to aid your aura of self importance.

However, unlike the picture painted above, Josh Lloyd-Watson (one half of duo Jungle) was drawn to LA for much more sentimental reasons: he was drawn their by love. And as much as it’s in bad taste to spoil a good Hollywood tale, let’s just say that this particular love story didn’t have the happiest of endings. Its mark is all over For Ever. It’s an album filled with the kind of existential longings you might have whilst staring at a David Hockney that pokes awkwardly out the boot of your Cadillac. Why did you buy it? Why are you moving out of your beach house in Malibu? And why, oh why, can’t you stop staring at its colours?

However, you wouldn’t guess this was the case from the opening track ‘Smile’. It’s an upbeat belter that is more reminiscent of the band’s debut. It’s all bright horns and finger clicks that are both reassuringly familiar and serve to create the kind of vista that brought the duo from West London so much success. However, the deeper you get into these 13 tracks, the greater existential crisis becomes. ‘Cherry’ begs, whilst ‘Mama Help Me’ yearns whilst ‘Give Over’ falls into full wallowing-in-self-pity mode.

Sometimes the happiness wins over. ‘Heavy, California’ – putting its West Coast references aside – is an incredibly polished jam that is layered with synths and tasteful licks. The same could be said for ‘Happy Man’, whose driving synth and bass combo propel it along at high speed, even if it is attempting to make an ironic critique of capitalism at the same time.

On other tracks it’s less clear. ‘Best 54’ is ostensibly a disco track adorned with hand claps and yet is tinged with a kind of sadness that suggests something darker.  ‘House in LA’ – an early single and probably the most prominent example of the tonal switch – continues this trend. In essence it is a brooding stomp accompanied with glittery synth flourishes but whose lyrics provides a more uplifting backdrop: “I feel alive in the sunlight”.

This battle between happy and sad constantly rages throughout this record. It is never sure whether LA is its saviour or its curse. On ‘Beat 54 (All Good Now) they sing about: “tears falling on the sunlight” whilst ‘Give Over’ talks about the “sun that saved my life”. Similarly the other halves in both Lloyd-Watson and McFarland’s lives get this same ambivalent treatment.

In the end there is no obvious winner. It’s an album which is not sure whether it wants to be happy or sad; to accept the inevitable nothingness of existence or keep searching for answers. This is best epitomised on closing track ‘Pray’. Lloyd-Watson seems to be wanting to get back with his former love and the best argument he can present is: “It’s not like we’ll be here forever”.