If this is your first time hearing of Guy and Howard Lawrence, the brotherly duo who make up the British DJ outfit Disclosure, I am pleased to introduce you to the two-DJ army on a mission to save the dance floor from the ravages of dubstep and local DJs who insist on replaying the radio hits of 2009. At the rate Disclosure is going there is actually no reason for you to go out next weekend to get your groove on—they bring the entire party with them on their second album, Caracal, which came out late last month.
It wouldn’t be a Disclosure album without a show-stopping appearance from Sam Smith, in this case on the fantastically produced single “Omen”. If I may digress: Let us all be grateful we now seem to be entering Sam Smith’s full-on George Michael phase: Christian imagery, scruff, and bluesy undertones as welcome as ever. But that is a different column.
Featured artists like Smith appear on nine of the album’s 15 songs. Disclosure gracefully walks the fine line between letting their superstar singers support them and letting them run away with the album entirely. In this they are successful where their contemporary ilk fail. They allow the vocalists to shine but treat their voices as instruments, on par with drum machines and turntables. A featured artist on any given song from Caracal is actually the soloist in a house music concerto.
This is particularly true of “Magnets,” featuring Lorde. The Lawrence brothers manipulate her voice to the point of almost turning it into a drum. Cutting it in and out percussively, contorting the timbre to blend with the galloping synth and layering her vocal tracks to sound like Lorde is coming at you from all sides.
The songwriting — always done in tandem with the featured artist — veers into territory currently occupied by Lana Del Rey: “record summers,” shaking off breakups and loneliness in the big city, all feature prominently. This is a notable step-up from their first album, “Settle,” which was a study in half-finished refrains and weird dance floor aggression like “Grab Her!”
We would be remiss if we didn’t mention the videos being released for each single. In a very “watch this space” move, the band has made a short film set in a futuristic surveillance state. Each music video adds a piece to the story, and the fourth and final installment is expected soon.
Above all else this album is groovy. I mean, when was the last time you could dance to a background recording of a thunderstorm? Plucky bass and a ridiculous amount of confidence and direction for a sophomore album carry Caracal through its 72 minutes runtime.
Standouts include “Molecules,” “Good Intentions,” “Afterthought” and the soon-to-be club hit “Omen.”