Django Django – Glowing In The Dark: Album Review

By Chris H on 12th February 2021 • ( Leave a comment )

Django Django return with their fourth album.

Released: 12th February 2021

Format: CD / Limited LP / LP / Digital

Doesn’t time fly when you’re sitting about doing absolutely sod-all? How can it be 9 whole years since Django Django smashed into the hit parade with their electro-indie belter Default? Now onto album number four, this latest offering finds the band hitting a real genre-bending sweet spot and releasing arguably their most consistent and accomplished record to date. And if that isn’t tempting enough for you, then the limited edition vinyl release actually does glow in the dark…

Glowing in the Dark ‘has a running theme of escape: from despair, from constraints, from small town life, and even, in dreams, from the Earth.’ Belter of a first single (and album opener) Spirals leaves you in no doubt of where we’re heading, grabbing you by your eardrums and launching you headfirst into a stomping electro-indie maelstrom destined for sweaty dancefloors (when we have sweaty dancefloors again).

You’re not really allowed up for air until track four; ‘Waking Up’, described in the press release as a ‘miniature road movie’. This is a road that could’ve led directly from the summer of love. The presence of the empyreal vocals of Charlotte Gainsbourg only add to the sense that we’re not only travelling in space but time here.

Track five proclaims ‘we’re free from gravity’ over a deeply funky little bassline. And that sort of sums up the album. The whole thing leaves you feeling gloriously untethered. This is a band that has always delighted in defying genre and wallowed in remaining unfathomable. In a time when everything feels thoroughly unstimulating this album manages to invoke all your senses. You don’t just hear this music; you see it; you feel it; hell, you can even smell it.

By the time you reach the title track towards the end of the album, you’re entirely sold. You’ve had some glitchy experimentation (The Ark) and a pretty little alt-folk ballad (The World Will Turn) and you’re ready to throw yourself back into the electro space funk rapids. ‘Glowing In The Dark’ is a dance-pop belter destined for a thousand remixes. In the midst of a lot of competition, it’s probably the catchiest tune on the record and the fact it is left till the near-end simply demonstrates the quality of the seam of tunes the band are currently mining.

This could be a debut, such is the energy and optimism infused within it. If nothing else, it’s a welcome antidote to current miseries. So crank it up, erect a strobe light in your kitchen and lose yourself in a parallel musical universe.

Watch/Listen to Free From Gravity from Django Django below.