Dave Simpson 

Dutch Uncles: Out of Touch in the Wild – review

Trading edge for accessibility, this Manchester electro band have one eye on the charts, writes Dave Simpson
  
  


Dutch Uncles haven't enjoyed the top 10 success of fellow brainy Manchester electro types Everything Everything, a fact this third album seems to want to remedy. They've kept the unusual time signatures, jerky basslines and Duncan Wallis's Alexis Taylor-like falsetto, which, and the boffiny song titles seem even dafter this time (Zug Zwang, Nometo). However, the production is smoother, with a hint of 80s AOR keyboards and one eye on the pop mainstream. Bellio hurls together disco, math-rock and "Maybe I'm just crazy" vocal swoons, and highlight Fester is sumptuous glockenspiel-led electro-funk. Their songs are odysseys in hooks that never linger anywhere too long, and although a certain blandness sets in later on, the trade of edge for accessibility is fair. Sadly, they're still missing the crucial ingredient of a killer chorus.

 

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