On Diver – the follow-up to their much-lauded eponymous 2008 debut album – San Francisco’s Lemonade find themselves in a awkward quandary between dance euphoria, introspective synth-pop and acid-drenched tropicalia. The problem is that each of these musical trajectories fail to blend into something truly cohesive and worthy as a successor to the drawn-out, dance-punk slow burners of 2008’s self-titled record.
Hearing the blaring siren that announces the arrival of opening track ‘Infinite Style’, it’s all too easy to assume that Diver will pick up neatly where its predecessor left off. However, expectations are quickly undercut as a wave of glistening, crystal synthesizers announce the arrival of something far more polished than the motorik thumpers of Lemonade. While it’s perfectly listenable –to a certain extent anyway – it feels confused, suffering an identity crisis of being too downbeat for the dance floor but too club-oriented and unmemorable to make for satisfying personal listening.
It’s a trend that mars much of Diver, though the record’s more experimental middle section does succeed at briefly lifting the mismatched stupor present across much of its 45 minutes. ‘Eye Drops’ marks one of the album’s indisputable high watermarks; its chiming 90s’ hip-hop piano figures and ethereal, warbling vocal lines swelling seamlessly from understated verses into majestic, lush choruses. ‘Vivid’, on the other hand, is more grounded, urgent and honest than anything else present on Diver, casting a vitriolic eye over much of the shallow, dance-pop that’s preceded it – a welcome shot in the arm.
With ‘Sinead’ though things quickly succumb to how they were before the brief moment of enlightenment witnessed on ‘Vivid’, the hackneyed quasi-trance of the track wiping away the more profound vibes left ringing by its predecessor.
The problem with Diver is that it too frequently bleeds over from the harmless tropical pop it peddles into a series of pompous ballads sans the catchy hooks; a slew of hipster slow jams for the uninspired.
[Rating:2]
