Three years after the release of their much-lauded debut, 'Echoes', New York four-piece The Rapture return with a new long-player, 'Pieces Of The People We Love", which was written over the course of 12 months after the band had finished touring their debut.
Knuckling down to writing duties upon their return to New York, the group emerged in a confident stride with 30 songs in their pocket and an itch to get into the studio with Paul Epworth (Bloc Party, Futureheads) and Ewan Pearson (mixer for Chemical Brothers, Depeche Mode and Gwen Stefani, on production duties for the first time) in Manhattan, and then with Danger Mouse (you may have heard of him recently through his Gnarls Barkley project) in L.A.
What's come out of these sessions is an album that winds a course from pop-funk smash (the call-and-response refrains of 'Whoo! Alright-Yeah, Uh Huh' are a grin-so-hard-it-hurts delight) to psychedelic ('Live In Sunshine'); The Rapture show their softer side on tunes like 'Calling Me', then resolutely wipe the slate clean with the blast of energy that is 'The Sound'.
All in all, this record is the sound of a band more focused, having too much fun and without a thought to any hipster pre-conceptions that might be held of them. It's the sound of a party to which everyone is invited.
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