Django Django – Marble Skies
On their third album, Django Django stick to their genre-blurring formula with mixed results
Across two albums – their Mercury Prize-nominated debut and 2015’s Born Under Saturn – art-pop group Django Django have forged a sound built on surf guitars and dance music-inspired electronica underpinned by vocal harmonies. It comes as no surprise then that their third effort, Marble Skies, deviates little from that very genre-blurring formula, albeit in slightly leaner fashion than its predecessor.
It’s an effort that kicks off at break-neck speed thanks to the quick-fire arpeggiated melodies and jangly riffs of the title track, rapidly followed by the pressurised beats and vintage house feel of Surface to Air, which is balanced by warm vocals. In Your Beat and Real Gone further this pulsating dance motif, the former being glitchy and yet smooth, adding extra punch to its explosive hook each time round, while the latter is both modular yet cerebral.
The more indie-infused side of Django Django's work comes to the fore in the middle of these two passages, keeping the tempo up on Tic Tac Toe but introducing a down and dirty blues vibe on Further. However, rather than marrying their sound together, the dual sides to the band stand in stark contrast. Marble Skies finds difficulty in consolidating each defining element into a smooth blend, leading to a record that’s bookended by heart-stopping tracks with a frustratingly stodgy middle passage.
Listen to: Surface to Air