Music

Kavinsky: Outrun album review

I think you can forgive Kavinsky for using Nicolas Winding Refn’s Drive as a source of inspiration for Outrun. Drive has given previously-little-known Frenchman Vincent Belorgey undoubted international recognition and an increased demand for his dark, edgy, French house-infused 80’s synthpop sound. I mean, you only have to watch the music video for Daft Punk-inspired lead single Protovision to see it play out almost identically to Drive’s intro.

Outrun’s back story unsurprisingly follows a young man and his car, in this case a red Ferrari Testarossa. The concept of the album follows the story of this young man, who after a car crash, becomes spliced with said Ferrari and rises from the ashes as a zombie, born to make electronic music. Yeah…

But I can also appreciate just why Kavinsky felt the need for his first full-length album to become synonymous with Drive. Many people will pick this up exactly for the hope that this is ‘Drive: The Concept Album.’ Unfortunately, Kavinsky’s homage to the 80’s is less fitting than that of Winding Refn’s and it suffers as a result.

Musically, Kavinsky does manage to capture that vintage synthpop sound and combines this retro sound with the unrelenting, sonic onslaught of monolithic synths that is recognisable of his French compatriots at Ed Banger records (unsurprising with SebastiAn helping with album production too). Songs like Blizzard, Grand Canyon and Roadgame are just begging to be played on huge walls of Marshall Speakers à la Justice, but there is a distinct lack of variety and subtlety on offer that makes the album convoluted, at times tedious and uncommitted to the overall concept. “And now you know how the legend of the dead cruiser was born” album finisher Endless told me. The reality was far different. The distinct lack of depth throughout had me questioning the track listing in particular.

The few occasions when there is a bit of variation are either done: Superbly – with the now legendary Nightcall (with over 30,000,000 Youtube views) restoring some sense into Outrun’s story line courtesy of Lovefoxx’s swooning and that Cinema-shaking thudding drum beat or: Awfully – with Mobb Deep’s Havoc making a real mess on Suburbia. The rapping sounds terribly out of place and is distracting rather than refreshing. When you are trying to mentally place yourself into the neon-lit skyline of a 1986 Miami Vice car chase, lyrics about Twitter and Facebook don’t half ruin your trail of thought.

There is an overall feeling that Outrun is the soundtrack to something, but it is not exactly clear or confident in its execution. The new-found fans of Kavinsky have craved for a full-length release, but it is too repetitive to warrant the release of Outrun as a single entity. This would have been much more manageable across a few EP without the album concept getting in the way to muddle proceedings. It is apt that Kavinsky decided to style his music through the use of a zombie; as Outrun is too cold-hearted and shallow to rival the albums of French house heavyweight predecessors like Daft Punk and Justice. Did it make me drive my red Volkswagen Polo like a Ferrari Testarossa? A little, yeah. But the fun soon got old.

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