According to the second track onThe Night Is Young, Joe Goddard needs an angel to touch him and tell him that everything is going to be alright. That line itself is a pretty concise summary of The 2 Bears’ humorous approach to conventional house music across their five-year existence.
The Night Is Young is a crash course in sampling and production. Thankfully it distances itself from the generic danciness of their earlier releases and brings a more rounded musical approach to the actual making of a song. The sheer creativity of the boys shines through the album and makes you understand just how versatile these guys can be in genre mixing.
However, their versatility is also the album’s downfall. While there is an underlying string of minimalist electronic beats that creates a similar feel from track to track, that is unfortunately where the continuity ends. It’s refreshing to see the guys bounce from trip-hop-oriented reggae sampling on ‘Money Man’ to R&B fusion breakbeats on ‘Modern Family’, but the absence of direction turns The Night Is Young from a great album into a great playlist.
The Night Is Young is one of those albums that sounds good on a road trip, but is impossible to dance to.
3/5.
The Night Is Youngis out now through Southern Fried/Liberator.
