Yukimi and Co Drop Mutant Beats

Fresh from a hot SBTRKT collaboration, Sweden electropop dream team Little Dragon has returned with their own LP — considerably wizened since their 2007 debut.

Granted, wizened does not always mean easy listening. Ritual Union, while sandwiched by the melodic title track and the pizzicato sweetness in “Seconds,” is by and large more avant-garde and ambitious than 2009′s Machine Dreams. The stars, however, remain their signature prominently featured electronics and rhythm-driving vocals a la Yukimi Nagano.

The tracks often sound like almost-unrecognizable mutations of genre pastiches. “Shuffle a Dream” is a blunt new wave track that’s missing a clear hook, New Order melody, and deliberate structure. “Nightlight” is a decidedly creepy, dissonant version of 80s funk pop — like a backalley Madonna, MJ, or even Pat Benatar. “Precious” would be a distortion-revving dubstep experiment after the drop — if it weren’t for a soul clap beat.

Perhaps it’s an exercise in futility to put them in neat boxes, as Ritual Union is the opposite of neat. Yukimi’s wide soul vibrato plays the role as the album’s often tuneless leader. She competes with the looped, repetitive electronic beats, which plop like uncooperative water droplets all around her. In some tracks, like the ambient “When I Go Out,” they plop like growling jungle animals.

Ritual Union is a dark, dreamy, decidedly un-minimal album with a few pop anchors. It’s an evolutionary step that true fans demand from Little Dragon, while more faint-hearted listeners can walk away with some goodies, too.

Photo Courtesy of Peacefrog Records