Metronomy

For his debut, Joseph Mount grabbed whatever instruments he could and threw together a mishmash album of pop and IDM that felt as if he just pressed record and winged it. The result, Pip Paine (Pay the £5000 You Owe), may have been the product of slipshod DIY means but what Mount accomplished with such a meagre budget dazzled with its infectiously bent, off-key melodies and eccentric arrangements. In the two years since, Mount has transformed Metronomy into a proper band, recruiting his two live band-mates full-time and giving his sound an overhaul. Nights Out doesn’t completely abandon the mindset of Pip Paine but it’s clear that Mount was looking to expand the sound. Mostly gone is the offbeat and ramshackle Warp-isms, which have evolved into pop song structures built around irregular, often hyperactive time signatures, farting rhythms and again, even more uncanny melodies elevated this time by Mount’s obscured vocals. A lot of the album sounds like a mixtape of pop songs titled 1977 to 1984, left on a dashboard in the sunlight. "The End of You Too” is akin to listening to "The Walk” by the Cure on brown acid, while "My Heart Rate Rapid” is almost a compressed cover of Bowie’s "Heroes” dipped in Pop Rocks and Pepsi. Nights Out is a fantastically ingenious pop record that challenges, well, just about everything, with the exception of your stimulation.