This highly anticipated debut album from Mount Kimbie has been surrounded by an unprecedented amount of hype, and deservedly so. The duo's renowned live shows and consistently impressive forward thinking releases have earned them a reputation as a powerhouse of producing amazing music. With this in mind anyone with prior knowledge of MountKimbie will be approaching the album for the first time with undoubtedly high expectations, and luckily for us all the release definitely not a disappointment.
When listening to Crooks & Lovers the word which consistently springs to mind is 'beautiful'; each track is expertly crafted to guide the listener on a journey of awe-inspiring electronica. The opening track of Tunnel Vision offers up a brief but nonetheless beautiful intro and is followed up by the melodic and upbeatness of Would I Know, both of which submerse the listener into a world of subtle manipulations and pitched up vocals.
The album moves forward with the chopped up vocals and guitar fuelled Before I Move Off taking on a real genre defying feel, things take a turn for the darker with Blind Night Errand which echoes a sparse down-tempo garage vibe and errs on the side of the current bass-fuelled London scene. At only a minute and a half the fifth track from the album, Adriatic, is a kind of break from the main body of tracks, it’s a melodic guitar-lead down-tempo number and again features chopped up vocals and samples.
Carbonated is an eerie track with subtle percussive elements and a vocal which seems highly reminiscent of some kind of '90s garage tune, the blend of the vocal and the light woodblock hits eludes to the track dropping into something more but it never crosses the threshold. The next tracks Ruby and Ode to Bear move in a slightly different direction with Ruby taking on a more dubstep feel and Ode to Bear seemingly infusing elements of electronica and idm whilst they both maintain the overall sonic atmosphere created by the album.
The album yet again changes pace with Field beginning with a pumping rhythm which is a little more on the harder side of things than the tracks up to this point, it then drops into a guitar riff which wouldn’t be out of place in a modern indie band’s repertoire. Next up is Mayor, a really sparse melodic track featuring nothing more than the melodic plucking of guitar strings, a rhythmic clap and a subtle vocal sample. The album closes with Mayor – an upbeat track with interesting rhythmic elements, synth work and more chopped up vocal samples, it’s one of the many stand out tracks from the album and is a great a finish to an amazing debut LP.
If you’re into the forward-thinking bass movement and intellectual dance music, then Crooks & Lovers is a must have.