“This moment changes everything,” trembles Son Lux, as a drum blasts through what sounds like concrete blocks, choral samples swell and distorted strings flutter drowsily like mechanical butterflies that need winding up. Bones certainly tries to change the confines of pop production, at least. Lux has collaborated with Sufjan Stevens, Lorde and Beyoncé’s producer Boots, which hints at the sort of electro-classical/experimental/R&B style he deals in. But his attempt to blend these genres here is almost too ambitious to be listenable. Voices are used as instruments, rhythms hustle for space, tracks peak and trough more times than an Andrew Lloyd Weber finale, and there’s so much bone-crunching texture that it claws your ears like a gnarled kitten. Past the theatrical dins of songs like Flight and This Time, though, there are simple pleasures in the cinematic darkness of I Am the Others and the folksier Undone, which strikes a balance between complex rhythms and alluring acoustic guitar licks. Sometimes symphonic pop doesn’t have to be so packed to have punch.
