★★★☆
Featuring members of The Ocean Party and Ciggie Witch, Cool Sounds are a wonderful hybrid of their other projects, with a clear line of difference.
Describing themselves as ‘jazz-gaze’, they utilise synths and even the odd saxophone to create a sound that is vibrant and buoyant.
With track names that are as straight to the point as the songs themselves, Dance Moves jumps into things with ‘Control’. Intricate guitar picking introduces the track as a gentle synth comes into the mix without ever feeling out of place. The faster-paced songs on the record are also masterfully executed, with the likes of ‘Runs Wild’ and ‘Patina’ capturing the band’s immediate energy.
Cool Sounds place a lot of emphasis on introspection, and throughout the album they’re refreshingly forthright in the themes they want to convey. On ‘Shake’, lead singer Dainis Lacey pleas, “Stop looking my way”, while ‘Rinsed’ sees him passionately declaring, “I need your heart and soul, total control”.
While the album could at times benefit from a wider scope of sounds, it still dazzles from the very first listen and serves as the perfect snapshot of a band confident in its output.
An exciting future beckons as one of the leading bands in the independent scene.
Cool Sounds’Dance Movesis out now on Deaf Ambitions.
