Cut Copy: Free Your Mind

While you can never rule out an act taking a sharp left or right if the mood takes them, listeners usually have a fair idea of a band's motivations and intentions by their fourth album. In the case of Melbourne's Cut Copy, their immersion in dance/rock/pop has been hugely successful, and Free Your Mind sees them on similar terrain. This time they set the controls of their time machine for the Hacienda, Manchester's temple of foggy baggy from the late 1980s/early 1990s, and head off with producer Dave Fridmann in search of trips and thrills. The only problem is that while there's much to like in the hazy surface noises and hisses, there's little in the way of real excitement to justify this nostalgia. We Are Explorers and Footsteps are decent and robust, but elsewhere the melodies and hooks, hitherto Cut Copy staples, are sadly missing. cutcopy.net
Download: We Are Explorers, Footsteps