Album review: Tension by Kylie Minogue proves the Australian icon is still a maestro of reinvention
As clubs gear up for a sweaty summer, Kylie Minogue’s new album Tension delivers tracks that a new generation of music fans will gleefully bounce to.
Album reviews for week of September 22, 2023
POP
Tension
Kylie Minogue
Liberator/BMG
★★★★
Sixteen studio albums in, Tension proves Kylie Minogue is still a maestro of reinvention.
The zeitgeist-shifting success of Padam Padam reminded us of Minogue’s knack for serving up a pop culture moment akin to Can’t Get You Out Of My Head or Spinning Around. The song repositioned Kylie Minogue for a new generation of music fans – the perfect entry point to one of Australian music’s most diverse and enduring pop careers.
Still, as unshakeable as Kylie Minogue is, the mammoth impact of Padam Padam posed the question: Could a full album stand up to the lead single?
Tension, the album, delivers its answer through a bright, kaleidoscopic lens. This album is Kylie at a rejuvenated peak. While songs such as Padam Padam, title track Tension and the effervescent Vegas High hark back to her Body Language era of 2003, there’s a freshness to the production and Minogue’s presence on record that makes this music as easily absorbed as any chart-busting hit from Dua Lipa or Lizzo, say.
Synth-pop, ‘90s dance and house music form a strong foundation for Tension, incorporating production talents of artists including Dutch DJ and producer Oliver Heldens (10 Out Of 10), Lostboy (Padam Padam) and Jackson Foote, of US pop duo Loote. The influence of an international blend of co-writers and producers lends Tension a global feel, yes, but more significantly, they all come together in bolstering Minogue’s own talents as a writer and vocalist.
Early in the album, Tension shows it isn’t an album to be played with – following on from Padam Padam as the opener, we head gleefully into a standout track in Hold On To Now, a summer-ready hit that will instantly provoke feelings of euphoria from first playback. While second single Tension was a fitting follow-up to the monster Padam Padam, Hold On To Now has more longevity and legacy potential – as clubs gear up for a sweaty summer, it’s this type of track that bodies will gleefully bounce to.
The Tension era for Kylie Minogue has already brought the icon renewed success at home and in the UK, while finally breaking her in the North American market, arguably in a way she hadn’t achieved previously. A fitting companion to an album such as Disco, this is another chapter of the Minogue discography on which we’ll look back on in 10 years and still find pockets of freshness.
Sosefina Fuamoli
ELECTRONIC
Volcano
Jungle
AWAL
★★
London dance music merchants Jungle arrived on a breathless wave of hype a decade ago, alongside a slew of similarly starry-eyed British duos like Disclosure and Snakehips. While their initial mix of funk breaks and accessible house made them alluring enough to land a contract with XL Recordings, subsequent releases have cemented them as purveyors of MOR muzak. Volcano is a record stuffed full of emptiness; disembodied soul breaks, forgettable guests and a smooth rolling beat that renders many of the songs as indistinguishable from one another. It would be unfair to say that the pair are calculating the aesthetic that works best for streaming, but tracks like Dominoes and Coming Back, which chug by without impact, unfortunately fit that bill. Seemingly trapped between vintage Moby and Fatboy Slim, Jungle lacks the ingenuity and energy of both acts. History has shown these lads clearly have the ability to make sticky, enjoyable records. The question now: how to bring that feeling back?
Jonathan Seidler
FOLK/POP
MINOR GOLD
MINOR GOLD
MGM
★★★½
From the ashes of the Goodlife rises Minor Gold, its core duo singer/guitarists Tracy McNeil and partner Dan Parsons. This debut is 10 tracks of largely acoustic, escapist pop not a million miles from their former band, albeit stripped back with bonus colour swatches of sax and keys. As with the Goodlife it’s all about the songs, entirely co-written by the duo, with shared emphasis on melody, literate lyrics and lush harmonies. Radio has already pounced on its first four songs (Mona Lisa, Way With Words, Don’t Change and Cannonball), each a marvel of instrumental economy and postcard-perfect lyrics, the latter tune and latest single a standout for its cosmic central motif of firing one’s departed soul into space. Around The Bend features a rare electric guitar solo from Parsons, whose voice – uncannily echoing James Taylor’s – wraps itself seamlessly around McNeil’s. So much so that on a song such as Tumbleweed, the pair’s harmonies seem to exceed the sum of their parts, a la the four-part vocal alchemy of classic CSN&Y.
Phil Stafford
CLASSICAL
Tumbling Like Stars
AVE
ABC Classic
★★★★½
On her 25th studio album Katie Noonan — always fresh and forever weaving miracles in sound — has created another with the new a cappella vocal quartet AVE. With Noonan as the soprano lead, the Australian Vocal Ensemble comprises mezzosoprano Fiona Campbell, tenor Andrew Goodwin and bass-baritone Andrew O’Connor. Here, 12 Australian composers were commissioned to set work to poetry by Brisbane writer David Malouf. Most of the new works are around five minutes in duration, and some listeners may find a certain sameness in the four-voice textures. Only Richard Tognetti’s Meditation on Hadrian’s Death ventures into unusual territory; it is almost radiophonic. There are two bonus tracks: a mellifluous setting of a text from St John’s gospel by Andrew Goodwin, and a heartfelt Bach chorale translated into three Indigenous languages. The production by Matt Hitchcock from Griffith University was created in several sessions during bouts of Covid. It is a feat of engineering and the quartet’s singing, it almost goes without saying, is seraphic!
Vincent Plush
JAZZ
I Cakewalked With a Zombie
Phillip Johnston & The Greasy Chicken Orchestra
Earshift Music
★★★★
Eric Myers