We'll begin as we feel we ought: with the dark and ever doe-eyed Lykke Li who takes on the crestfallen Silver Springs. The track notoriously – and to a large degree nonsensically – omitted from Rumours' final tracklisting, its tender narrative fits Li down to her tear-soused stilettos. No stranger to sorrow, as guitars gently weep about her robust vocals (given the despondence intrinsic to her every effort her voice, it must be said, remains defiant at all times as though unwilling to unveil true feeling) she laments: "Time casts a spell on you, but you won't forget me/ I knew I could have loved you, but you would not let me." Heartbreaking – especially when contextualised by her irresistibly Nordic allure – had it been incorporated into Wounded Rhymes arguably few would've batted even an eyelash.
Veering ever further from normality – and seemingly sanity – are progressively zany NY types MGMT who return from the ether with an unforeseeably excellent proto-disco take on the title track of '71 LP Future Games. Even its title subversively bastardised and ridded of spatial distinction, it's a languid yet loosely histrionic affair propelled by robotic vocal processing – albeit enwrapped in swathes of psychedelia – that soothes, startles and eventually slips off the edge into a mesh of wispy static.
However concerning the comeback, nothing here conglomerated speaks such thrill as Christine McVie's Tusk take Think About Me which is given a discernibly rollocking redux by A.C. Newman's New Pornographers. Quite frankly it's been far too long since the shapeshifting Canadian collective outed Together back in 2010 and ultimately, here, a lack of progression only serves to accentuate anticipation for a full resurgence: dashing harmonies and a trademark instrumental suavity combine to provide an invigorating barnstormer of sorts.
Just Tell Me That You Want Me is released August 13th via Concord Music Group.
