Django Django’s Derry-born singer Vincent Neff recently confessed to feeling deeply ambivalent about the band’s 2015 second album Born Under Saturn.
“We put everything into the pot,” he said of a project he considered over-stuffed and undercooked. “With a second record you have to re-learn a lot of what you are doing. Circumstances have changed. It’s like you are starting over.”
The lesson has been well learned. On Marble Skies, Django Django revert to the stripped-down shimmer of their fantastic 2012 debut. Indeed, with the rollicking title track kicking off the LP, there’s a case that Marble Skies is the Edinburgh-based four-piece’s tour de force.
There’s some impressive envelope-pushing too. With Slow Club’s Rebecca Taylor taking over vocal duties from Neff on ‘Surface To Air’, the group make a surprisingly winning foray into dream-pop.
Those who adored the skittish bounce of early hits such as ‘Default’ will be cheered also. ‘Champagne’ and ‘Beam Me Up’ reprise old glories while communicating a forward-looking urgency. Confident, thrill-seeking and shot through with an agreeable giddiness, Marble Skies is, in the best sense, the sound of Django unchained.
Out today.

Rating: 8/10