It's easy to confuse Chromeo's smirking self-awareness for irony or, worse, a macho sort of arrogance, especially when they kick off their fourth LP with a song featuring a chorus singing, "I get jealous, but I'm too cool to admit it/ Other fellas talk to my girl, I ain't with it." But Dave Macklovitch and Patrick Gemayel are more complex than the shiny surface of their music often suggests; they're poking fun at themselves (and male neuroses in general), but they're having so much fun doing it, it's often hard to discern the message from the funky medium.
White Women is the best Chromeo record yet, a seamless combination of energy and melancholy, disco and soul, all mixed together into some of the most effective songs they've written. Soul ballad "Lost On the Way Home" (featuring Solange) and the slow snap of "Ezra's Interlude" (featuring Ezra Koenig of Vampire Weekend) are perfect breathers between more uptempo numbers like "Hard to Say No," "Somethingood" and "Over Your Shoulder," whose effortless disco shuffle makes it an album highlight.
Where previous Chromeo albums have been marred somewhat by gimmicky tunes that overstep even the duo's own formidable levels of kitsch — the syrupy "J'ai Claqué La Porte" and the mere title of "Bonafied Lovin'" come to mind — White Women maintains an air of musicianship that makes even songs like "Sexy Socialite" and "Frequent Flyer," two of the album's weaker tracks, palatable. White Women is consistently fun and well-crafted, a shining example of disco's renewed relevance from a pair of musicians for whom the genre never went out of style.
Read our recent interview with Chromeo's Dave Macklovitch here.
(Last Gang)White Women is the best Chromeo record yet, a seamless combination of energy and melancholy, disco and soul, all mixed together into some of the most effective songs they've written. Soul ballad "Lost On the Way Home" (featuring Solange) and the slow snap of "Ezra's Interlude" (featuring Ezra Koenig of Vampire Weekend) are perfect breathers between more uptempo numbers like "Hard to Say No," "Somethingood" and "Over Your Shoulder," whose effortless disco shuffle makes it an album highlight.
Where previous Chromeo albums have been marred somewhat by gimmicky tunes that overstep even the duo's own formidable levels of kitsch — the syrupy "J'ai Claqué La Porte" and the mere title of "Bonafied Lovin'" come to mind — White Women maintains an air of musicianship that makes even songs like "Sexy Socialite" and "Frequent Flyer," two of the album's weaker tracks, palatable. White Women is consistently fun and well-crafted, a shining example of disco's renewed relevance from a pair of musicians for whom the genre never went out of style.
Read our recent interview with Chromeo's Dave Macklovitch here.
