Album Review: Ezra Collective, Dance, No One’s Watching

Ezra Collective follow-up their Mercury Prize-winning Where I’m Meant To Be with Dance, No One’s Watching, a gleaming celebration of unbridled freedom.

Split into four acts, the album effortlessly simulates the euphoria of a great night out. Effectively, the London quintet are the house band for an event that’s equal parts club rave, jazz session and Sunday morning service.

The loose-limbed album is at its most radiant on ‘The Herald’ and ‘Everybody’, dual odes to the music and atmosphere of West African churches. The former is a mighty exercise in blood-pumping rhythm, while the latter has a more contemplative, spiritual feel.

Further standouts include ‘Hear My Cry’, where the drums march in lockstep with the breezy bass line; the pulsating warmth of ‘No One’s Watching Me’; and the elastic groove of ‘Streets Is Calling’, spotlighting the fluid give and take between Ghanaian polymath M.anifest and funk siren Moonchild Sanelly.

By turns energising and hypnagogic, Dance, No One’s Watching showcases Ezra Collective as harbingers of joy and inner peace, with an impressively eclectic range.

• Out now