DISLOCATION DANCE - ARE WE THERE YET?

Dislocation Dance:
Are We There Yet?:
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Apparently partly-constructed in a garden shed owned by the band's trumpeter, low-key fifth-album proper by anarcho-jazz-janglers Dislocation Dance sounds for all the world like a set composed somewhere considerably more exotic.

Are We There Yet? is by turns a heady melange of smoky-soul, indie-pop and lo-fi emotionally-charged torch-songs written by fifty-somethings for everybodies. The opening Songs That I Like is up there with DD's best moments, even the exemplary and oft-championed Rosemary single, while Swimmers in a Secret Sea is a charming nugget of lyrical melancholia that recalls The Beautiful South, The Distractions and Everything But The Girl.

And so the theme continues throughout this understated but accomplished exhibition of free-falling jazz-pop and hazy lovers-lane acoustica. Incurable Romantic is cut from a similar cloth to Devine and Statton's lovely Crepuscule output or Saint Etienne's more naval-gazing moments with its sweet fragile vocals and subject matter and Road To Happiness is a jaunty number that showcases Dislocation Dance's ability to flip from poignant to pop at the drop of a hat.

At fifteen songs long, there will be a few missed chances and scuffed shots but at least two-thirds of Are We There Yet suggests that they are on target.

7.5/10