Album Review: Two Door Cinema Club - False Alarm

False Alarm, a glitzy slab of retro-futurist pop from County Down trio Two Door Cinema Club, is a relatively rare animal. As a pop record, it’s MO is colour and sound, engaging our lizard brains and moving our feet. Yet it’s pushing back against maximalism, while still milking as much as it can out of the studio to make it sound full, vibrant and as on-brand as early '00s Kitsune Records alum can be without resorting to volume. 

This one’s all about validation, with characters pleading to either be recognised, liked, or for their partner to quit being self-absorbed. It can get a little broad, but it’s all wrapped up in such a catchy package it’s easy to move past the didacticism and get to the good stuff.

False Alarm starts weak and formless, but quickly plants a flag, declaring its intentions to drench the running time in layers of robo guitar funk (Prince, but not) and playful pastel pop, and it mostly works. There’s an unfortunate misstep in the middle that throws things off balance - a pretty weird rap inserting itself into Nice To See You, an otherwise great song with bluster and panache - but by the time its motoring second single Satellite arrives late in the piece, things are cooking. Final track Already Gone has such a victorious, stratospheric hook it feels a shame to end the record with it.

False Alarm is a nice attempt at something new(ish) for the band, with mixed results. The irony is that the whole thing sounds a decade too late.