Outfit - Slowness (2015) Lossless

As opener ‘New Air’ ends, Outfit have already submerged the listener in some artfully flowing keyboard lines and disembodied floating vocals, each syllable of “new air, new air, new air” merging into the next. It’s hellishly impressive that only one track in, the Liverpudlian band have already constructed and choreographed such an entrancing rise and fall. It’s theatrical and dramatic without being too pretentious.

The album meanders stylistically, between an icy pop aesthetic, more abrasive textures and a straight up dancefloor shimmer and the song structure reflects it, from the hooky ‘Smart Thing’ to the spiralling ‘Boy’. The thrilling excursions of ‘Happy Birthday’ and ‘Genderless’ are arguably the album’s two greatest highlights beyond ‘New Air’. Sandwiched between them is an instrumental piece ‘Wind Or Vertigo’, that sounds like it’s just waiting for its place in a film score.