Disclosure - ‘Alchemy’ review: the brothers go back-to-basics

It’s hard to believe a decade has passed since Disclosure altered the course of British electronic music. After bursting onto the scene with 2010 EP ‘Offline Dexterity’ and 2012’s ‘Tenderly/Flow’, the brothers’ 2013 debut album ‘Settle’ transformed them into festival headliners virtually overnight. While DJ Mag described their house and garage sound as the “antithesis to EDM”, the record spawned some huge crossover hits and ascended the careers of Sam Smith (‘Latch’), Aluna (‘White Noise’) and Jessie Ware (‘Running’). Against the retro-throwback of Daft Punk’s ‘Random Access Memories’, the pair offered a vision of a future

Ten years on, Guy and Howard Lawrence have rekindled some of that back-to-basics for their fourth album. Their first independent release, the surprise-dropped ‘Alchemy’ has no samples or guest vocalists, and instead finds Howard using his own vocals and lyrics more than ever before. A daring decision, perhaps, but this new, more personal approach mostly pays off.

Read more – Disclosure: “Some people want us to make ‘Latch’ over and over again”

Written while the British duo were at two contrasting points in their lives – recently-married Guy was settling into a new home in Los Angeles, while Howard was reeling from heartbreak and exhausted from a 150-date tour – they aimed to “channel pain into beauty”. With this context in mind, ‘Alchemy’ plays like an album of two halves. Reflecting a wide range of emotions, warm sonics are contrasted by bittersweet lyricism (see the trance-leaning singalong ‘A Little Bit’) and diaristic field recordings (acoustic guitar strums and a pet dog provide comfort during the final 30 seconds of ‘We Were In Love’).

While the album’s story-telling is diaristic and there are also nostalgic throwbacks to Disclosure’s early days – see ‘Looking For Love’s bumping two-step garage beat – the key difference with ‘Alchemy’ is that the emphasis is placed on production. Rather than diluting their soundscapes to make room for big-name artists, the beats shine. ‘Higher Than Ever Before’s jungle breaks incorporate a very on-trend sound, ‘Go The Distance’s rubbery synth lines conjure a hedonistic warehouse party, and the summery ‘Simply Won’t Do’ pulses with energy.

Perhaps purposefully, the album’s pace slows down at the halfway point, as palette-cleansing gospel interlude ‘Someday’ resets the mood. Rainfall is cleverly used as a narrative device, too, reflecting post-break-up sadness; after trickling on ‘We Were In Love’, a thunderstorm strikes on the atmospheric ‘Sun Showers’. Then, with its blowing wind chimes, the meditative yet forgettable ‘Purify’ once again stops the party.

The ambience is short-lived, though, as a car engine and crackling radio signals lead to the groovy ‘Brown Eyes’, whose robotised vocals recall the French Robots. Adding another dimension, ‘Talk On The Phone’s vocal style briefly sounds like a ’90s R&B boyband, as Howard sings over a patiently-pulsing beat: “When the teardrops in your mind become too much, you might try to fall in love with someone else, but we’ll talk on the phone”.

Despite a sprightly run time of just under 38 minutes, the pair cover vast ground, much of it new, across ‘Alchemy’. However, after several sporadic vibe changes, the album’s overall cohesion feels slightly lost, though perhaps that was the intention due to the personal circumstances in which it was created. Nonetheless, it’s clear that Guy and Howard are enjoying their newfound creative freedom to push beyond what’s expected of them.