Grab a good pair of headphones, upload St. Lucia to your MP3 player (you’ll want to have the option of mobility), and let the feverish pop bliss wash over you. Then try to suppress the embarrassingly giddy dance moves that ensue. Just try.
This project by Jean-Philip Grobler, now backed by four additional members, is all sunshine and synthesizers, with the bonus addition of guitar, drum and keyboard. In tracks like “The Old House is Gone,” the metallic intonation of steel drum brings to mind the calypso sounds of this band’s island namesake, and “All Eyes on You” has the staying quality to pleasantly plant itself in your subconscious for the rest of the day.
Simplistic and minimal vocals glide over joyous guitar melodies and a pounding pulse of drums in most tracks, but listeners can find the true standout of this six-song, self-titled EP in the album’s opening number, “We Got It Wrong.” Forget the title, because they most certainly got it right. An almost two-minute buildup of haunting yet upbeat harmonies puts you on edge before reaching its pinnacle and exploding in frenzy.
Thumping bass drum, ascending electronic scales reminiscent of a Zelda soundtrack and slamming keyboard spill forth only to drop off, yet again, in a sharp plateau. The lyrics “tell me how” leave you hanging in auspicious limbo until, under the shimmer of electronic reverb, the song rebuilds itself one last time, slowly layering drum, then tambourine, then stacks of buzzing vocal harmonies until a breakdown best compared to something by Phil Collins hammers out the signal to bring it all home. From this point on, things taper out slowly, leaving listeners with only the sound of a lone horn and an intense desire to ride the wave to St. Lucia again as soon as possible.
Has anyone been listening to Conway? She just recently toured with St. Lucia! She’s awesome — http://noisey.vice.com/blog/stream-conways-high-velocity-kiss-off-shut-up-ep?utm_source=noiseyfbus