Album Review: Texas, Jump On Board

Texas’ return after a three–year absence comes complete with a Thierry Henry-starring video for the strutting, upbeat disco single, ‘Let’s Work It Out’. Hardly a cameo to thrill the band’s many Irish fans, but the accompanying song itself is a charmingly funky yet laidback number, fuelled by scratchy, Nile Rodgers–like guitar. It sounds at once retro and modern and, even if the synthesiser strings can come across a bit Eurovision, it’s a perfect opener for Jump On Board.
Frontwoman Sharleen Spiteri has said that the new album feels “like a new beginning” and, while acknowledging the influence of bandmate Johnny McElhone’s Altered Images and Orange Juice’s ‘Rip It Up’, the down–beat disco–noir of ‘It Was Up To You’ and ‘Round The World’ certainly point a way forward for the Scottish veterans. However, as the album swings between the extremes of late night disco and sunny, festival-ready rock, it does lack a little in consistency.
It’s easy to imagine that – while nothing here reaches the heights of ‘I Don’t Want A Lover’ or ‘Say What You Want’ – several of the tracks could have been at the top of the charts in Texas’ late–’90s heyday. It’s less easy to imagine them jostling for position among modern pop behemoths like Ed Sheeran, The Weeknd and Taylor Swift. Sadly, Spiteri and co.’s new–found fondness for ‘Get Lucky’-style disco pop already sounds quite dated amongst planet pop’s futurist–EDM and pop–maximalists.