Somewhere Else

While Sally Shapiro (the duo) take some much-appreciated baby steps towards new sounds on Somewhere Else, Sally Shapiro the frontwoman remains just as stuck in unrequited love as ever, and the music that supports her is no less bouncy or plasticine as her previous stuff. 

Despite their heavy reliance on the past, in Somewhere Else there are more hits than misses.

Somewhere Else isn't quite a departure from Sally Shapiro's last two albums, but in among the sequencers and identikit drums are instruments from a more muted palette: flute, saxophone, and beats that skitter rather than shimmer.

While previous albums bounced with hooky pop jubilance, undercut with disco beats, much of Somewhere Else exists in what sounds like the hours after the party.

Somewhere Else can feel like a long EP with a companion remix disc than a complete, cohesive album, boasting some strong singles and filled out with some efforts that are worthwhile enough but can’t quite match up.

It’s difficult to qualify Somewhere Else as middling because it proposes a whole new set of exciting challenges for Shapiro, but it also brings about a befuddling, poorly sequenced effort that crosses out songwriting ingenuity with across-the-board dancehall padding.