For their third LP, Mount Kimbie have lost that previously razor sharp focus. Love What Survives offers a scattergun approach to ideas, sounds and voices, and it could be their greatest record yet.
Love What Survives is a revelation — a summation of their work to-date without specific precedent for any individual track.
Three albums in with ‘Love What Survives’, they’re moving forward once again with a floating mix of motorik beats, woozy pop and some solid vocal collaborations.
What makes Love What Survives the duo’s strongest work to date, however, isn’t their use of high profile guests. Instead, this is the first time Mount Kimbie has turned their brilliant sketches into monumental songs.
Sure, the bar may have been set lower this time, but there’s no question that Love What Survives reinstates Mount Kimbie’s reputation as credible musical innovators.
Some might be disappointed that, for now, they’ve moved further away from dance music. But in the process, they’ve made a bewitching kind of music that’s uniquely their own.
Raw yet warm, Love What Survives has a distinctively comforting setting.
On their third album, the band’s instrumentals radiate wit and warmth, like mid-80s New Order sloshing around in a sun-kissed sea – but it’s as a foil to some of Britain’s most idiosyncratic artists that Mount Kimbie really prove their mettle.
Love What Survives won't make Mount Kimbie household names, but it finds them in a new creative space that suits them.
It’s more of a slow burner – not so instantly gratifying as previous works – but the atmosphere of these tracks really gets beneath you. It’s their most affecting work to date by some stretch.
Never does it hide the duo’s own merits, as they embrace a more vibrant form of beat-driven electronica that also functions in a rock context with collaboration at its heart.
Ultimately, Mount Kimbie strip away any musical excess on Love What Survives, and leave raw vivid emotion.
Though it may seem ironic that for all the glitches, warps and pops of their earlier material, Mount Kimbie find themselves gravitating towards the simplest of beats, Love What Survives is a close examination of how rhythm can define and alter our perceptions of electronic music.
A record that scans more like a playlist—an expertly curated “Late-Night London” mix linked by general atmosphere and autobiographical connection—rather than an individual work of art.
There's nothing here that really grabs you on the first listen, but return to the record a few times and you'll end up carrying songs like the aforementioned "Marilyn" and "T.A.M.E.D" around with you for days.
There are parts of Love What Survives that you’ll want to dive straight back into again ... and then others that are a little more ephemeral. One thing that is true throughout though: Mount Kimbie continue to broaden their scope and push the bounds of we can expect from them as a band.
As tracks quickly pivot between ragged indie rock, melodic dance music and wistful, tinkly tunes, the record feels disjointed, but a few productions stand out as some of their most inventive yet.
Best Mount Kimbie album.
The duo combines the concepts and sounds of their last two albums into a perfect blend of indietronica. The production on Delta seriously blew me away.
Four Years and One Day - 7.5/10
Blue Train Lines - 8.5/10
Audition - 8/10
Marilyn - 7.5/10
SP12 Beat - 7/10
You Look Certain (I'm Not So Sure) - 8.5/10
Poison - 6.5/10
We Go Home Together - 8/10
Delta - 8/10
T.A.M.E.D - 8/10
How We Got By - 7.5/10
varied and moving pieces of both electronic and traditional methods. Propped up further by some features to add even more life to some of the tracks
1 | Four Years and One Day 3:17 | 76 |
2 | Blue Train Lines 4:10 feat. King Krule | 87 |
3 | Audition 4:13 | 80 |
4 | Marilyn 4:11 feat. Micachu | 78 |
5 | SP12 Beat 2:32 | 71 |
6 | You Look Certain (I'm Not So Sure) 3:22 feat. Andrea Balency | 79 |
7 | Poison 1:53 | 69 |
8 | We Go Home Together 2:35 feat. James Blake | 79 |
9 | Delta 4:04 | 80 |
10 | T.A.M.E.D 4:11 | 73 |
11 | How We Got By 5:06 feat. James Blake | 72 |
#2 | / | Mixmag |
#11 | / | The Skinny |
#16 | / | The Vinyl Factory |
#17 | / | Double J |
#24 | / | Loud and Quiet |
#29 | / | Piccadilly Records |
#31 | / | Gorilla vs. Bear |
#32 | / | Passion of the Weiss |
#34 | / | Crack Magazine |
#34 | / | Earbuddy |