His first release since last year's The Boxer album finds Kele Okereke again working with Spank Rock producer Alex "XXXChange" Epton, who brings a bracing electro sensibility to proceedings.
That's not the only hangover here: the track "Cable's Goodbye" features calls on courage and lonely manliness that reflect the underlying theme of The Boxer. But it's a solitary stance: elsewhere, the tracks are mainly concerned with love lost, denied and desired, Okereke unveiling a sleek pop-soul delivery over the techno groove of "Devotion", and chastened amongst the electronic gunfire of "Love As a Weapon". There's an infectious manner to tracks such as "Release Me", while "You Belong to Someone Else" has a filter-sweep straight out of the mixbook of Shooting Stars' Angelos Epithemiou, which can't be right.
DOWNLOAD THIS: Devotion; Cable's Goodbye; Release Me
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