Lazers Never Die

If there's one complaint you can lobby against Lazers Never Die-- the new EP from Diplo and Switch's global party project Major Lazer-- is that we're only now getting our hands on it, a month or so into summer. A minor qualm, but it's a shame to think about how many Fourth of July barbecues could've benefitted from this batch of originals and reinterpretations from the duo's hybridized dancehall debut, Guns Don't Kill People-- Lazers Do. To paraphrase Scott Plagenhoef's review of that album last year, this is clearly music that works best in the heat, but it still has the dexterity to stick around once the flip-flops have been tucked away. On this concise and surprisingly fresh sounding EP, Major Lazer retain the sweat-soaked club feel that's curried them so much favor but also appeals to their perennial accessibility.

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Call it a superficial gimmick if you want, but I happen to believe that Damon Albarn’s decision to man his much-beloved Gorillaz with cartoon characters was a savvy artistic decision. His format relies on the amalgamation of well-known talent (Danger Mouse, Snoop Dogg) as much as of eclectic pop textures, so without some sort of strong identity to bring it all together, the contributors’ force of personality is bound to mutiny the whole thing. I mean, was Wings ever NOT that group Paul was in after the Beatles? Anyway, the benefit of pretending that cartoons were behind Gorillaz’ music is that nothing of their sound would seem inconsistent, the same way we accept that Wile E. Coyote survived all those falls and anvil-related trauma. So, while envisioning the choir in “Tender” from Albarn’s old band Blur’s 13 may have contributed to that album feeling like a mixtape, the nearly identical sound on the title track of Gorillaz’ Demon Days seems hardly out of the ordinary.

Full Review | More Reviews from Publication | Top Rated of 2010