Young Galaxy – Shapeshifting Review

I’ve been so busy these days I didn’t get a chance to post, but I did want to throw up a quick link to the recent Young Galaxy review that I did for Donnybrook.

Here’s a quick take on my thoughts:

Gone is the driving optimism from old classics like “Outside the City,” “Searchlight,” and “The Alchemy Between Us.” It seems their joyous sense of adventure has been lost and in its place a world-weary iciness has crept in, leaving everything empty, cold, and alienated. But as the album progresses, elements of their prior exuberance shine through and you see that rather than cynicism, their optimism has merely been tempered with unsympathetic doses of reality.

Written like a meditation on humanity, the album progresses with Young Galaxy slowly working through mankind’s foibles and weaknesses to eventually find the beauty within our civilization. To accompany this allegory, Young Galaxy has filled Shapeshifting with hollowed out voices, electronic beats, and sparse soundscapes drawing inspiration from the likes of New Order, The Knife, and The Eurythmics. Of note is the inclusion of traces of world music, like the Caribbean-style steel drums on “Cover Your Tracks;” however, at times it falls too deeply on the side of some absorbed new-age mystical oddity.

Check it out the rest here and listen to my personal favorite “We Have Everything” below.

Enjoy.

Young Galaxy - We Have Everything by Hypetrak