Album review: Little Dragon

Nambuma Rubberband

Little Dragon might well have made the best track of the year in ‘Klapp Klapp’, a pulsating, fist-pumping strut of a song that clocks in at that perfect pop length, just over three and a half minutes. The second track on their fourth album Nabuma Rubberband, it towers over everything else here.

A sinister bassline lurks as Yukimi Nagano declares that “I know you want it, don’t you?” And that might be the problem — ‘Klapp Klapp’ is all I want. If it was just that song repeated 10 times, then Nabuma Rubberband would be an amazing album. As it comprises 11 other tracks, it’s just about above average.

A four piece from Sweden, Little Dragon have been plying their alt-pop trade since 1996 and, much like their US synth brethren Future Islands, finally seem set to make their breakthrough. Indeed, the bands appeared on David Letterman’s chat show just over a week apart; Future Islands’ hipshaking performance took the spotlight away from Little Dragon, though.

Momentum seems to be the main pitfall here. Post-‘Klapp Klapp’, ‘Underbart’ sizzles, ‘Cat Rider’ fizzles out, but then the late-night, smoothmoving ‘Paris’ makes things interesting again — it’s a process that continues on the next three songs. Where they try to seduce and show their sexy side, Little Dragon stumble. Nagano’s vocals float away when they should smoulder, while the synth meanders rather than swaggers. ‘Only One’ manages to transform from an insipid slow number (“There’s a place far away that is better, he said I want us to go there”) into a dancefloor killer, one that fistpumps its way into the whomp-stomp of ‘Killing Me’. Like the nomadic ‘Paris’, here we also find Nagano contemplating her place in the world: “I’ll take my rocket ship, get the hell out of this, nothing that I’m gonna miss.”

One wants Little Dragon to soar, to leave their inhibitions in the club’s cloakroom and shake their tail like Future Islands’ Samuel T Herring did on Letterman’s stage. But they cower too much on Nabuma Rubberband, waiting for the DJ to play ‘Klapp Klapp’ again.