Disclosure
Caracal
PMR/ISLAND
6/10
Rather than repeat all the torrid tricks of their debut, 2013’s Settle—rampant vocal samples, thick pop melodies, a decadent, dancey morph of dubstep, garage, and house—Disclosure go for something less cool—but more interesting—on Caracal. Sure, Sam Smith returns to the place where we first heard his name (their teaming on the new “Omen” proudly shows off his croon at its most tender), but his is just the most effective and human of voices on the Surrey–based siblings’ Caracal. Brother Howard Lawrence takes the microphone to sing the hyper “Jaded” and singer-songwriter Nao is backed by silken disco flicker. Yet it’s the slower, more simmering cuts that amaze—not so much Lorde’s ultra-dull, mid-album bore “Magnets,” but The Weeknd’s turn on “Nocturnal,” a sexy, sleepy waking dream. Caracal is a more heatedly soulful and undeniably slower and touchy-feely release that pushes Disclosure into stranger territories with limitless possibilities in the future. AD AMOROSI
