Where Sylvan Esso collected some great songs, What Now feels like a statement of purpose, a duo stretching into the shape it was meant to be and bringing it all purposefully together.
Electric synth alt-folk-pop funk duo mix Amelia Meath and Nick Sanborn score and dispense another slick and gang of stand-alone singles.
The cool café-ready vibes have been replaced by weightier production that’s suited more for the club; techno-inspired beats intricately and lusciously built atop one another.
‘What Now’ seethes with magnitude focusing on the next stages of progression, as we try to plot our next route in a challenging existence. This album deserves your attention and is a perfect example of a group accomplishing and exceeding their full potential.
With What Now, the band celebrates infectious, accessible music as a diversion from the mundane, as a way to give voice to universal feelings, even as they warn against its ability to distract from genuine expression in favor of manufactured sentiment.
Sylvan Esso have produced another, more polished product: the band seem more surefooted, the vocals loftier, the production shinier, the audience (it's sure to attract) broader.
What Now is a performance of musical ballroom dancing; an impressive demonstration of compatible fluency in artistic languages of partners, and routinely with the harmony that nearly makes the heart ache. Evidently, they bring the best out of each other.
It swings between biting and sublime, with occasional moments of triteness; but when Meath and Sanborn get it right, they get it very, very right.
On this new record Meath and Sanborn dispense with many of the freeing and expansive sounds of their debut, opting, with varying degrees of success, to play instead with feelings of tightness, darkness and enclosure.
The sophomore album from the electronic pop duo offers a biting, withering take on pop music, full of crisp humor while still finding real moments of tenderness.
What Now is an album best experienced privately. This feels odd, given producer Nick Sanborn’s excellent ear for effusive electronic hooks, but vocalist Amelia Meath is a master of taking the extroversion out of pop music and bending all that remains inward.
As a collection, What Now is peppy, confident and a little scathing but, like its title, it feels slightly too open-ended to make a real splash.
Mostly, What Now is intent on being bigger and brasher than its predecessor, perhaps to avoid politely slipping into the background quite so easily.
What Now is less eccentrically atmospheric than its predecessor, but their boisterous energy is intoxicating enough to win you over, and their sense of fun is palpable.
I like her voice but I must be getting old because I just don't get this type of music anymore. Cotton candy repetitive lyrics and computers doing all the work. Moving on to something with more depth.
"What Now" would be an exceptional pop album even without the uniquely brilliant production. Meath's vocals are wonderfully emotive and the lyricism strikes that perfect pop balance with meaningful themes yet catchy hooks. The production is of course phenomenal, though. I hadn't heard anything like it in 2017 and I'm still yet to. I like the direction they took on last year's "No Rules Sandy" but this is undoubtably my favourite of theirs. You don't really know what's coming ... read more
1 | Sound 2:32 | |
2 | The Glow 2:58 | |
3 | Die Young 3:30 | |
4 | Radio 3:32 | 85 |
5 | Kick Jump Twist 4:23 | 90 |
6 | Song 3:27 | |
7 | Just Dancing 4:28 | |
8 | Signal 3:29 | |
9 | Slack Jaw 3:05 | |
10 | Rewind 4:39 |
#4 | / | The A.V. Club |
#8 | / | Entertainment Weekly |
#19 | / | Paste |
#21 | / | The Wild Honey Pie |
#23 | / | NPR Music |
#24 | / | musicOMH |
#26 | / | The Skinny |
#32 | / | The Line of Best Fit |
#36 | / | Drowned in Sound |
/ | Variety |