Kygo, a return to form or a continued slump?
Kygo is a Norwegian DJ/music producer who up to this point has released five studio albums to varying degrees of success. While he is my current favourite electronic producer, the last two albums he released those being Golden Hour (2020) and Thrill of the Chase (2022)left me not so excited for this one. I went into this with pretty low expectations thinking I may like one or two songs on here but the overall album would be bad, luckily that isn't the case here. This is a nice return to a decent album, it's nowhere near the heights of Kids in Love or Cloud Nine but it's a solid album with some great songs that's mostly weighed down by a lot of filler tracks on an eighteen-track album, so let's talk about them.
The self-titled album consists of eighteen tracks one of which is a remix of an M83 song, this album starts well with the Intro piece setting the mood and the first two tracks being great tracks in their own right. These three tracks are followed by three that I don't enjoy at all, the lyrics and vocal performance on Surrender, in particular, are pretty bad great electronics/instrumentals. Can't Do It On My Own suffers from horrible high-pitch vocals that plague a lot of electronic music, I don't like them here and I don't like them in a majority of scenarios. Finally, out of those three, we have Me Before You which has more vocal problems with distortion applied to the vocals just sounding pretty bad. The album continues through three more tracks that are mostly fine before we get to Louder which is my favourite track on the album, the composition, the vocals, and the lyrics are all extremely good, a classic Kygo masterpiece. It's then followed by three tracks that are alright and then For Life which was another highlight on the album for I, a nice little bop. The album ends on some high notes with Kygo's rendition of the M83 song Wait is a very well-done remix of an already amazing song and then the closing track Love Me Now or Lose Me Later is a nice melodic song with sadness in it so of course I love it.
Best Songs:
Whatever
Louder
Wait
Love Me Now or Lose Me Later
Worst Songs:
Can't Do It On My Own
Me Before You
Found Another Love
Surrender
It had been since the 2017 release of Kids In Love, that I could say I genuinely enjoyed a Kygo album. A long seven-year drought of mediocrity has come to a close, is this a perfect album? No, far from it but it's a nice album and after so many years of wanting more content from artists you love, decent is sometimes good enough. My only hope is that it goes up from here, it would be really unfortunate if the album that will inevitably follow up this album goes back to being another disappointment. I still have faith in Kygo to continue making wonderful songs and hopefully, he's able to piece enough on a singular album to make another wonderful album. Only time will tell, this album is getting a solid 59/90 from me for a score of 65%.
