The Backstory
Season High comes three years after Little Dragon’s Nabuma Rubberband and as always, they’ve switched things up for this record. For the first time ever, they brought in external producer James Ford, who has worked with bands like Arctic Monkeys and Florence + The Machine, and Patrik Berger, known for his work with Lana Del Rey and Charli XCX. It continues a flare for collaboration that the band has explored lots recently, using the time in between albums to collaborate with Kaytranada, Flume, Mac Miller, De La Soul and more.
Despite, reaching out to other producers and attempting to disrupt their comfort zone, they still recorded the album in Gothenburg, Sweden - their hometown.
At A Glance
The band has admitted to being swayed by “pop norms” on other albums around but this time around, they’ve thrown out any conformity. This is a weird, wild album that sits somewhere between hypnotic pop and Prince-peppered funk. There seems to be two obvious modes best exemplified by the two single High and Sweet. High is slow-moving and elongated while Sweet is an extrovert, laying down a steady groove.
You’re not going to find the same straightforwardness that they presented on their last album though. This is a less clean sound and as such, it may take a little more time to fully fall in love with it. At the same time, it’s their most sonically interesting album. The sounds are pulled from all around the world and pulled into Little Dragon’s world.
The Best Song
It’s really hard to go past the upbeat songs on this record. Yukimi’s vocals are tailor-made for funk music and it’s also a mode that they surprisingly haven’t explored much in the past. Opener Celebrate is a dancefloor stormer, giving us a four to the floor beat and one of the most adventurous guitar solos the band has ever given us. It’s in the same vein as other album highlight Sweet. They’re both exuberant funk songs that stand so obviously above the rest of the album.
That’s not to say some of the softer moments aren’t also great. Don’t Cry is a beautiful, fragile track that perfectly houses Yukimi’s gentle vocals. It also harnesses all this energy ready to explode which is both a frustrating and rewarding feeling. All that energy that is harnessed is then unleashed on the following track Strobe Light which a dark, club track that might be the most haunting thing they’ve ever done.
The Worst Song
There’s not really one song that lets the whole album down. It’s such a cohesive effort that pulling one song from the tracklist would really disturb the flow of the album. The only track that feels a little lacklustre is Butterflies only because it feels as if it should escalate to something greater and it never does, even with a duration of six minutes.
Overall
Little Dragon are a great band but they’ve never made a classic album. They have always had excellent singles that stand out way too much above the rest of the album content. On Season High, they’ve fixed that problem. Every song feels like an equal. While the danceable tracks are the ones that will sink into your ears immediately, the quieter moments are so beautiful and so necessary in giving the album light and shade. This isn’t the Little Dragon album you should be giving to a newcomer to the band because it’s probably the least immediate but it’s also got the most longevity of any of them.
8 Out Of 10
Little Dragon's Season High is out tomorrow.
