It’s seven years since the Belgian brothers Dewaele unleashed their fine, largely instrumental and foot-stomping Essential album on the world, but they’ve given short shrift to any ideas of sitting on their laurels in the intervening time. Their new album, All Systems Are Lying still points emphatically towards the dancefloor, but it brings plenty of new flavours to their sound and is considerably more song-based than its predecessor.
This isn’t to say that Soulwax have gone down the standard guitar, bass and drums route on their new album. Their sound remains emphatically guitar-free in fact and still sits very much in electronica territory despite their three drummers. There are, however, shades of LCD Soundsystem and Depeche Mode evident especially on tunes like “Gimme a Reason” and “New Earth Time”, while splashes of Kraftwerk and Yellow Magic Orchestra shine through on the likes of “Idiots in Love” and the alien grooves of “Polaris”. What marks out All Systems Are Lying most obviously, however, is the presence of Laima Leyton’s vocals throughout, providing song structure and lyrical context, where before there was more of a narcotic headrush.
Nevertheless, there are also plenty of untethered experimental sounds that wouldn’t be out of place in a Laurie Anderson set and both “Meanwhile on the Continent” and the hypnotic and disorientating title track have elements of neo-motorik Arabic music deep within their DNA. While the rump-shaking “Hot Like the Sahara” and the blistering “Run Free” might easily rub up against the more unsettling electro-rock vibe of the Young Gods. In fact, All Systems Are Lying marks a fine return to the fray for Soulwax that incorporates a plethora of sounds while keeping hips swinging and heads spinning, and making it clear that these dancefloor veterans are far from spent some 30 years since they first stepped into the spotlight.
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