Album Review: Season High by Little Dragon

So back in 2011 here is what I said about Ritual Union the album from Little Dragon.

Electropop is tough because too often the musicians get over indulgent and lose track of the fact that they are constructing pop tunes. In this case you have a wonderful singer who is wasted because of the over indulgence of her bandmates.

Well like good bands do this band figured out how to marry the two and in 2014 found success with their album Nabuma Rubbeerband. I missed that album so I missed their first real mainstream success and so now I'm picking them up on their album after their first big success.

If you listen to the opening track, "Celebrate," you can't miss the influence of Prince and if you listen to their second track, "High," you can't miss the influence of Portishead. Massive Attack influences are on this album as well as other artist like Janet Jackson. The fun thing is these guys have not completely walked away from their experimental ways and so you get a very fresh sound in 2017 and an album that once again shows that the Swedes know how to do pop music.

The big improvement of this album, from what I heard in 2011, is that they are fully leaning on the talents of lead singer Yukimi Nagano. She delivers and this ten track album flies by when you put it on. Even their more experimental pieces like "Butterflies" and "Gravity" feel very rooted in the same pop sensibility that you find on the rest of the album and so it all works very well together. I talked about Shura doing this with her debut album last year, someone who was taking from many of the same influences, but Little Dragon pulls it off better.  I would give much of this credit to Nagano. 

Unlike Shura's album though this does not have any songs that grab me quite the way her album did and so I find myself putting this on the same level.   Following the Rhapsody rating method I give it 3 out of 5 stars for Pretty Good.