Album Review: The Presets - Hi Viz

The immediate concern around a new album by The Presets is whether it measures up to their 2008 commercial peak, Apocalypso.

While their 2012 follow-up Pacifica was arguably as artistically accomplished (if not more so) as their explosive second album, its gentler and more open sounds unfortunately saw it framed as a disappointment for some fans.

But, ten years after the fact, Hi Viz may serve as the duo's desired follow-up. It doesn't really sound a lick like Apocalypso or Pacifica - not any more than Apocalypso sounded like the pair's debut album Beams, anyway. It's a much leaner, weirder record. The tripping half-step beats, jazz scales and random bursts of 8-bit noise on opener Knuckles are probably the weirdest thing The Presets have ever done. And, while Hi Viz never gets quite that weird again, this track very much sets the album's tone: The Presets are not fucking around.

Where Apocalypso was a very precise blast of pop songwriting welded to club electro and Pacifica used electro as a foundation from which to explore wider realms, Hi Viz drops all pretences and simply detonates the dancefloor. It's bloody brilliant. Creative? Expressive? Surprisingly contemporary, even? Yep. All those things. But, above all, it's just awesome. Get it.