(2021) The KVB - Unity        


Review:
For their sixth album, the KVB's Kat Day and Nicholas Wood took inspiration from their time in Spain and the unfinished luxury villas they found there, left abandoned after the financial crisis of the late 2000s. On Unity, however, those structures are symbols of potential, not pessimism. From the concrete forms on the album's cover to the tightly interlocked shoegaze and synth pop within, there's an architectural harmony that suggests that the future could be bright. Beginning with the sweeping synth vistas of "Sunrise Over Concrete" and "Unité"'s sleekly tooled message of bringing people together and closing with Wood's command to "forget the days we left behind," Unity is held together by a surprising, and winning, optimism. In between, Wood and Day's wide embrace of possibilities extends to the different approaches they explore with the help of producer Andy Savours. Of course, the KVB still excel at meshing shoegaze and minimal electronics so effortlessly that they seem made for each other on "World on Fire," "Unbound," and the aptly sparkling "Lumens." However, it's just as satisfying to hear them stretch on a song like "Future," where Day's soulful vocals and taut rhythms build on the moves they made toward the dancefloor on Only Now Forever. This momentum continues on the strutting "Blind" and "Ideal Living," a tense, synthwave-inflected track that marks one of the few times shadows creep into the album's gleaming sound. Rounded out by the clever counterpoint on "Structural Index," Unity feels richly varied instead of disjointed, and it's a testament to Wood and Day's creativity that they're still finding fresh ways to express themselves this far into their career. — allmusic


   


Track List:
01 - Sunrise Over Concrete
02 - Unité
03 - Unbound
04 - Future
05 - Blind
06 - Ideal Living
07 - World On Fire
08 - Structural Index
09 - Lumens
10 - Omni


Media Report:
Genre: electronic, post-punk
Country: London, England
Format: FLAC
Format/Info: Free Lossless Audio Codec
Bit rate mode: Variable
Channel(s): 2 channels
Sampling rate: 44.1 KHz
Bit depth: 16 bits
Compression mode: Lossless
Writing library: libFLAC 1.2.1 (UTC 2007-09-17)


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