[rating=6.00]
Young Galaxy’s latest album is unusual. Filled with electro-pop and down-tempo dance numbers, on the surface it’s a light and airy affair, but something sinister is bubbling beneath the surface. Never really sure if you should be bobbing your head or scratching it, and a bit of everything in between, it’s hard to know what sort of impression this Vancouver outfit was reaching for.
Singer Catherine McCandless croons ethereally like Enya on “Fever” and mumbles hypnotically in the ’80s-style synth number “In Fire,” but unlike the sweeping moods across most of the album, there isn’t a ton of dynamic in the delivery.
Ultramarine gains a bit of steam in the latter half and score points for further musical variety—“Out of the Gate Backwards” accentuates its dance rhythms with some hooky, funky riffs, and “Privileged Poor” is perhaps the most upbeat and primal —but overall, it’s is a middling experience. It doesn’t really have much of a direction and in the end it’s hard to make head or tail of what you’ve just listened to.
