Album Review: Chromeo - White Women

Just as the party was flagging, Canadian novelty-funksters Chromeo return with a nude cannonball shot into the pool, coming to the surface with a firework between their teeth and a bottle of vodka in each hand. Dave 1 and P-Thugg's fourth album, White Women, picks up where 2010's Business Casual left off, with a few tweaks to the mix to keep it interesting. As one would expect the overarching sound of White Women is based on the usual, playful, early '80s disco-boogie-funk-pop, the dumb fun of opening track, Jealous (I Ain't With It), ticking (or tickling) all the boxes before the duo begin to mix things up a bit. Toro Y Moi brings a slightly more delicate edge to Come Alive, while Over Your Shoulder shows a more sensitive side to Chromeo as they take on women's body image issues with an unexpected, yet undeniable, Steve Miller Band influence. A match made in heaven, the ever-wonderful Solange joins the boys again for Lost On The Way Home, sadly not a Losing You part 2, yet nice stuff just the same.
Elsewhere various influences are forced at keytar point into the sound, George Benson-esque jazz fusion on Hard To Say No, OMD-Ringwald '80s teen movie nonsense on Play The Fool, old school house on Frequent Flyer and Studio 54 disco-strings-meets-sax-noodle-meets-Daft-ish-vocoders on the closing Fall Back 2U. Where Chromeo could have fallen into cookie cutter comedy tributes to the likes of Prince, Cameo and One Way, they've instead approached White Women with a more widescreen view, and sound all the better for it.