Milky Chance are an electronic folk duo from Germany. Their
melancholic debut single ‘Stolen Dance’ ended up being a massive crossover hit
that was so ubiquitous that I heard it pretty much every day during the summer
of 2014. Lead singer and guitarist Clemens Rehbein along with his musical partner
and electronic maestro Philipp Dausch are back with their second record which
serves up another collection of easy-going tracks that see the band showcase a
more well-travelled sound this time around.
The record’s opening track; the title track ‘Blossom’; will
feel like slipping into your favourite pair of slippers for any Milky Chance
fan, it’s comfortable and you know what to expect. This isn’t a bad thing. It
dissuades any worries that the band wouldn’t be able to replicate their tunes
from their debut record, the chilled out guitar leads and layered electronic
beats are still here in spades. As you work your way through the album however,
you start to see that there’s some new sounds and musical direction this time,
some fit the band’s sound like a glove and some fit like Donald Trump saying he
respects women’s rights.
These new sounds are most prevalent on the track ‘Firebird’.
It’s a sun-drenched track with a blitzing latin-tinged guitar solo featuring sumptuous
arpeggios towards the end that immediately evokes images of people salsa
dancing and downing tequila shots. It’s definitely a fun track. On the track ‘Cold
Blue Rain’, there’s a harmonica heavy opener that sounds like it has come from
a score of an old western movie but it didn’t come off for me and instead just
took me out of the song, it didn’t feel at home on this record and didn’t suit
Milky Chance’s sound for me.
Rehbein and Dausch show on multiple occasions throughout the
course of this record that they are still capable of creating a big pop hit. ‘Ego’
is the high point of the album, it’s funky and groovy with lovely textured
sounds and it just makes you want to throw some shapes, whilst ‘Cocoon’ is this
record’s attempt at ‘Stolen Dance’, it’s melancholic and the big chorus will
get anybody moving and singing along.
Some issues prevent this record from being great though. The
lyrics are painfully basic throughout. Rehbein croons in his distinct delivery “I
know that we’ll be forever, together forever as one” on ‘Cold Blue Rain’ and it
sounds like something you’d write in a beginner’s writing class. English isn’t his
native language so I can excuse him to some extent but the uneven production
can’t be excused. On tracks like the 7-minute closer ‘Heartless’ it’s like you’re
in the recording studio experiencing each drum hit and guitar strum in its
purest form but on tracks like ‘Doing Good’ a lot of the instruments get lost
in the shuffle.
This record features an enjoyable selection of tracks that
you can dance to whilst equally working as easy-listening tracks that are perfect
to chill out to. The record loses a bit of steam towards the end and it extends
15 minutes too long with it coming in at just under an hour. Cutting out some
needless tracks would have improved this record but this new musical
exploration leaves me intrigued for what’s next for Milky Chance.