Lust for Youth – Perfect View

Perfect View is Swedish producer Hannes Norrvide’s second album as Lust for Youth, following hot on the heels of last year’s Growing Seeds. Actually, make that cold on the heels, for there’s little warmth to be found amidst this record’s bewitching beats and frosty synths, despite a definite dialling-down of its predecessor’s confrontational distortion.

There’s a pop core to these compositions - for example, the muffled New Order-ish intro to Another Day, or bonus track I Found Love in a Different Place’s tight hooks - but it’s damaged and resolutely twisted, with a presiding claustrophobia neutralising any dance-floor urges. Narcotic synth lines, haunted shouts and metonymic thuds provide the three corners of its un-shifting aesthetic, and while it's effectively hypnotic, it also feels overly exposed. With its noir heart permanently shrouded, Perfect View proves to be a record to detachedly admire, rather than lust after or fall for. [Chris Buckle]