Late-stage capitalism has many downsides, but hearing about them from Chromeo is a new one. On Adult Contemporary, billed as a grown-up survey of “what it means to be funky in your 30s and 40s,” David “Dave 1” Macklovitch and Patrick “P-Thugg” Gemayel offer mea culpas for situationship snafus, pine for the ex who could change their ways, and, on the Italo-inspired disco of “BTS,” lament the libido-sapping ills of burnout culture. “I need to confess,” Dave 1 concludes, “Sometimes rest can be better than sex.” He’s got a point, but coming from bloghouse’s class clowns it’s kind of a bummer.
On their albums Fancy Footwork and White Women, the Montreal disco-funk duo split the difference between roguish dirtbaggery and suited-and-booted sophistication. If their schtick ever felt overdone, then the duo were rolling their eyes harder. “Guys are all schmucks,” Dave 1 once said. “It would be funnier to embrace it.” Mixed by the New York DJ and Jessy Lanza collaborator Morgan Geist, the new album aims to correct the big-budget bloat and ill-fitting features of 2018’s Head Over Heels, and features La Roux as its sole guest. While a few songs here could be Chromeo canon, Adult Contemporary too often feels like a glossy recreation of their earlier sound that’s missing the idiosyncrasy and baked-in humor.
The album is at its best when the new outlook prompts a change-up of Chromeo’s sound. The yacht rock-inspired “Friendsnlovers” is a wistful sigh that you can imagine soundtracking the bittersweet ending of a Netflix romcom, and “Words With You” is a deadpan boogie through ’80s disco-rock punctuated with a rubbery bass groove and celebratory horns. But at other times, the album sags under an overly liberal lacquering. The introspective ballad “A Cut Above” dissolves into its pillowy synth pads, and the pensive “Waiting for a Star to Fall” soundalike “Lonesome Nights” simply makes you want to revisit Mylo’s (better) flip of it.
As much as the duo idolizes Bootsy Collins et al., Adult Contemporary feels like a well-made 2010s pastiche of disco-funk destined for a sponsored dance tent. (It’s as if the future-funk experiments of Thundercat and Steve Lacy—not to mention the pandemic-era disco explosion in pop—never happened.) The wry “Personal Effects” could be the title for a comedy of manners Noël Coward never wrote, but its retro flavor extends to its central figure of the “leave something behind” girl who sneakily “forgets” her phone charger at the narrator’s place. “Coda” feels like it primarily exists to showcase a punchline about “coda” sounding like “codependent,” trading in the lusty seductions of Chromeo’s funk forebearers for a buzzword cribbed from TikTok. Despite flashes of Adult Contemporary’s described maturity, the album generally prioritizes living large to the extent that, on the hi-NRG referencing “Ballad of the Insomniacs,” a maudlin insomniac wonders, “Where’s the party at?”
But Jagged Edge they are not. Over 52 minutes, Chromeo’s exhortations to vibe begin to feel as repetitive as their album art, which this time features the suited duo alongside a woman whose clothes have fallen off. (They’re not Roxy Music either.) As with Solange’s divine cameo on White Women, the highlight of Adult Contemporary comes when a guest takes center stage. La Roux’s appearance on “Replacements” feels like a parting of velvet curtains, as if everything before were a warm-up. “Tried so hard to get you out of my head,” she sings, before a sly, very funny plot twist. “Oh, I wish you had a sister instead.” In 30 seconds, she nails the precise balance of pathos, warmth, and humor that Chromeo spend the record chasing.
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