genres: alternative + electronic + hard rock + rap + shoegaze
The first rule with Don Broco, is don’t expect anything. I mean, you can expect (weird) great music and (weird) fun videos, but trying to guess the exact style they’re gonna try next is entirely pointless. It WILL be unexpected. This was my most anticipated album of the year, I listened to each single dozens of times, watched all the studeo videos, and I still didn’t expect what we get on this album. So let’s talk about some of the overarching things before diving into the specifics. This might be one of the best produced albums I’ve ever heard. Despite being loaded with electronic and digital effects, almost everything is run through analogue devices to get an incredibly warm and rich texture. And compositionally, it intentionally evokes sounds from every decade since the 60s (focusing particularly on the 80s and 90s) while sounding like absolutely nothing before, even within their own catalog.
Based on the singles “Gumshield”, “Manchester Super Reds No.1 Fan”, and “Uber”, it seemed like the album was going in a direction mashing together electronica, rap, and hard rock into a pretty coherent package. There was the shoegazy “One True Prince”, but surely that was a one-off, right? Nope! About half of the non-singles also lean into a shoegaze/britpop hybrid that is really really good, and also so unexpected. The heavier moments of the album are a clear progression from their past album Technology, and even the rap was hinted at by “Pretty” from that album. But songs like “Easter Sunday” seem entirely foreign to their library, which in and of itself makes it fit in a certain way.
What’s not surprising is the lyrical content we get. For a band that started out with an EP titled Thug Workout, there’s a surprising amount of social commentary going on. The trademark humor is still here, but the focus on social issues is far more focused than any previous album. “Manchester Super Reds No.1 Fan” tackling problematic fandom through a sci-fi take on British soccer? Obvious progression from Technology. “Uber” being directly aimed at a racist and xenophobic driver, and maybe being the angriest the band has sounded? That’s new. And perhaps surprisingly, the band manages to make those moments of plain sincerity hit just as hard as the rest, without disrupting the wild vibes. This may be an unexpected release at many moments, but it also fully lives up to the billing by being Amazing.
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