Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs: Trouble – review

There's a lot of clever things going on in this debut album by 22-year-old Orlando Higginbottom (below). Feted as the new face of pop/dance crossover, he wears headdresses like Lady Gaga and shows equal bravado in the musical influences he has acquired. Higginbottom has the melancholic vocal style of art-dance faves Junior Boys, a dollop of Hot Chip's playfulness and the retro-house music tones currently filing fashionable dancefloors across the UK. It's a mix that can fit well together, as on Trouble, where flighty synths and a Latin house rhythm underpin the plaintive chorus "You could make me happy", before giving way to a bass-driven section that suggests this happiness might not be immediately attainable. For the most part, however, enthusiasm and influences are not matched by the songwriting. Garden, the soundtrack to a Nokia ad campaign, is a case in point; its jaunty hook sticking in your head over 30 seconds, but over the course of four and a half minutes, it begins to sound a little over-exposed.