Free Your Mind (Cut Copy)

ALTHOUGH it's doubtful the task of enticing listeners to spend 50 minutes with an album is getting easier,  Cut Copy's outcome here is admirable.

Free Your Mind: Cut Copy

ALTHOUGH it's doubtful that the task of enticing listeners to spend 50 minutes with an album gets any easier with age -- especially in an age of infinite distractions -- the outcome achieved by Melbourne electro-pop act Cut Copy here is admirable: a highly replayable song cycle packed with quality ideas.

Free Your Mind is its fourth full-length album since 2004, and also its riskiest release to date: Primal Scream's seminal 1991 album Screamadelica is a crystal-clear influence, and while those acid house leanings are slightly jarring at first, this new direction soon makes a lot of sense.

Synthesisers, bass, punchy drums and Dan Whitford's disaffected dance-floor catchcries still form the foundation of Cut Copy's distinctive sound, but here those hallmarks are paired with gospel vocals, handclaps, tambourine, jaunty piano and slick electronic samples to superlative effect.

Three songs nudge the six-minute mark; none outstays its welcome. The first half pulses with obvious singles. We are Explorers and Let Me Show You Love are among the band's finest work, but the thrills are packed to the gills. Even the handful of short, interstitial soundscapes -- a throwback to the quartet's last great album, 2008's In Ghost Colours -- are essential.

Free Your Mind is a vital, urgent set that continues to reveal its riches long after the first spin. With great risk comes great reward: what could have collapsed under the weight of pretension and acid house retro-mania is instead an artistic triumph.

LABEL: Modular
RATING: 4 stars