Album reviews: Georgia – Seeking Thrills, and The Big Moon – Walking Like We Do
Producer/singer Georgia pays homage to Chicago house on her energetic second album, while The Big Moon return with their most ambitious work yet
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Your support makes all the difference.Georgia – Seeking Thrills
★★★★☆
On Georgia’s second album, she pays homage to the intoxicating freedom of the dancefloor. Drawing heavily on the Chicago house and Detroit techno of the Eighties, Seeking Thrills is a heady dose of sonic nostalgia.
The London-based producer/singer, tipped on this year’s BBC Sound Of poll, opens on “Started Out”, which takes the murky bassline of Fingers Inc.’s “Mystery of Love” and spins it into something brighter. From here, she spins and whirls her way through a labyrinthine record that vacillates between the squalling punk of MIA (“Feel It”) and the shuffling, squelchy textures of Frankie Knuckles.
If the length of Seeking Thrills is the party, closer “Honey Dripping Sky” is the comedown. A slow-moving elegy, it recalls the grandeur of a Hans Zimmer score, with mournful brass tones and crackly percussion, before a drop takes you into murkier depths. Georgia splices the beat and twists the synths into an eerie doomscape, yet it’s strangely comforting – her reminder that while this night may have ended, there’s always tomorrow.
The Big Moon – Walking Like We Do
★★★★☆
Combining ramshackle grunge-pop with wry nonchalance, The Big Moon were hailed as saviours of rock when they broke through in 2017. Love in the 4th Dimension, their Mercury Prize-shortlisted debut from that year, channelled the carefree giddiness of youth. Their follow-up, Walking Like We Do, feels far more serious.
Written entirely by lead singer Juliette Jackson, Walking Like We Do underpins the band’s signature summery vibe with a generational feeling of anxiety. Morose piano keys thud as Jackson imagines a series of comedy trips – “I’m just waiting for the piano to fall/ Braced for an opening trap-door” – adding a Paul McCartney-like humour to heavier subjects.
Certain songs work better than others: “Dog Eat Dog” tries to tackle social injustice but lacks real bite; “Don’t Think”, though, has all the swagger and defiance of vintage Blondie. Most impressive is how much more confident The Big Moon sound as a band, assisted by bombastic production by Ben Allen (Gnarls Barkley, Bombay Bicycle Club) and ambitious arrangements that are almost cinematic in scope. Walking Like We Do is an album about the will to keep moving forwards – regardless of whether you know exactly where you’re going.
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