It makes you feel old when you consider that Melbourne synth-pop rockers Cut Copy have been around more than 15 years now, but here they are with their sixth studio album Freeze, Melt.
Between 2017 album Haiku From Zero and this release, the band went their separate ways, with likeable lead singer Dan Whitford moving to Copenhagen. As a result there’s a discernible dark Scandinavian influence on this record (as the title hints), which moves away from the dance pop which shot them into the mainstream. Instead Freeze, Melt offers less dance and more atmospheric tunes, with unhurried rhythms and spontaneous robotic quirks, reminiscent of Kraftwerk.
There’s an underlying melancholy in Whitford’s vocals throughout, perhaps without design given the album was in the works long before the pandemic, but it works perfectly in our new socially isolated COVID world, where human interaction is often connected by technology. Climate change is the theme but art’s subjectivity often re-imagines interpretation based on context.
Opener ‘Cold Water’ ponders human connection in the modern world. It sets the tone for a disparate Cut Copy album, taking 100 seconds for any drum beat, before finishing strong after the slow build-up.
‘Like Breaking Glass’ and ‘Love Is All We Share’ are accessible tracks which follow the opener, pondering love in the modern world. The former might even get your hips jiving. While the latter, to borrow a cooking reality TV show phrase, is the hero of the album with its stilted beat and sparkles of electronic noise, as Whitford wonders “nobody knows my name”.
The album was mixed by well-known Swedish producer Christoffer Berg in Gothenburg, of fame with The Knife and Robyn, adding to the Scandinavian flavour that makes you imagine the coldest of winters in 24-hour darkness to the confusion of summers with midnight sunshine.
Freeze, Melt moves ambient and instrumental, without ever overdoing it, showing a minimal restraint that works without removing what makes Cut Copy unique. The challenge in restraint is grabbing the listener and there’s not enough high points in the eight-track to take Freeze, Melt to the next level.
‘Running In The Grass’ delivers an upbeat Tangerine Dream bassy robotic beat, while ‘Rain’ is a memorable and climactic instrumental, that will probably get more credit as it ages.
Cut Copy have showed dare to change the formula with Freeze, Melt, finding a balance in the delicate combination of experimentation and subdued restraint. It may not be as memorable as 2004’s Bright Like Neon Love or 2011’s Grammy nominated Zonoscope, but it’s a fine mature album that takes the Cut Copy evolution into a third decade.
THREE AND A HALF STARS (OUT OF FIVE)
Freeze, Melt was released by Cutters / The Orchard on August 21
