Album Review: Paces - ZAG

It may be winter on the Gold Coast, but Paces' Mike Perry has been working up a hot sweat with this second album, missing not a beat from the two-year gap since his 2016 debut.

If it ain't broke, why fix it, right? On ZAG, he rocks up in his pimped beach buggy, sub-woofer cranked and reinforced for maximum carnage, pumping the bass and the drops for a massive pop-up party. Things get sticky when Perry's old mate Guy Sebastian returns for a sexy slam in Siren and Close Enough is a bleepy 'morning after' warning to a one-night stand to keep a little bit of distance. Don't Run treads on Diplo's loafers a bit and Paces certainly has the potential of being our own answer to the Major of Lazers with R&B flavouring his often densely packed beats throughout.

There's not too much sonic diversity though, and everything sounds a little too claustrophobically produced on a laptop to last long enough to be embraced as a summer record. Call The 5-0 and Going Mad do deliver on the sunshine and sangrias pretty darn well, but once again, Perry's guest list is packed so tightly you wonder whether he'd last the night if left by himself.