Album Review: Bag Raiders - Horizons

“Rising with the morning sun/Waking up to greet the day,” kicks off this record. This optimism from album opener Faraway leaves little room for cynicism. I Need You earnestly follows suit; it's wistful, distant, but warm and gentle nonetheless. Each track sings with the fresh-but-fading memories of a glorious summer holiday.

Wild At Heart serves as a rhythmic pivot, bopping along with a halftime dropout and return. If contemporary beat making has lessons to teach, they are about light and shade. Back To Myself is a more fully realised groove. I’ll Be Loving You embraces the retrospective.

Medicine is the highlight. It has a throbbing heart with occasional moments of elation; the sort of jam that might accompany life’s more intimate occasions. Lazy stands alongside it for similar reasons.

It’s interesting to think of an optimistic, open-hearted dance crew as being introspective. This record, though, is surely that.