Ten years after their last studio album, 80s femme pop group Bananarama is back with new songs to fill a half hour on the dance floor. Although the original trio had a successful UK tour in 2017—which must have played a significant part in the creation of this album—the Bananarama lineup here is the one we’ve known through the millennium, of Sara Dallin and Keren Woodward. This new record, despite the long absence, is another record full of sugary dance-pop jams that stick to the group’s persona. Bananarama’s origins in the synth-heavy 80s are felt here, but so are the Europop and dance sounds of the 2000s. The two influences combine to create a pop assault on your ears, which is sometimes effective and sometimes exhausting and overall just a bit dated in relation to the rest of the pop landscape at the moment.
The album starts strongly, with the first half of its ten songs moving at a fairly appropriate pace. The album opener, “Love in Stereo” is a burst of noise that definitely grabs your attention from the get-go, which is good for an opener but the lyrics here are especially choice for the start to this album. Dallin and Woodward sing that it’s “been a long time… [and] I still remember,” which is as good a way as any to open your arms up to your fans after a decade without new music. The song would be a little too aggressive in its dance-pop energy if not for a careful calibration of its peaks and valleys, which give you necessary moments to catch up with the song before being overwhelmed.
The handful of tracks that come after “Love in Stereo” are more easily digestible, and pretty cool to boot. “Dance Music” introduces an almost spooky, creeping vibe that adds a level of intriguing darkness to the record, with the follow-up track “I’m on Fire” featuring synths that wouldn’t sound out of place on Stranger Things. “Intoxicated” differentiates itself from the other tracks by spotlighting the vocals and not letting them be overtaken by the many layers of music around them. Many of the tracks here feel a bit overloaded with musical elements; “Intoxicated” in particular features a kind of shimmering sound effect that feels unnecessary and distracting from the better elements of the song.
The first half of the album is rounded out by “Tonight,” which is extra heavy on synth and is quite fun. The next couple tracks suffer from “too much” again, which weigh them down in the center of the album, sowing a seed of fatigue where we should be recouping our energy and interest in the album. “It’s Gonna Be Alright” picks things up again with vocals that bring to mind the power of their early hit “Venus.” The album closes with two tracks that sound unlike the others on the album: first, “Got to Get Away” starts with a hint of a rock sound, and in general, is farther away from the dance side of the album and closer to pure pop. As “Love in Stereo” is the “welcome back” song to start the record, “On Your Own” is the comedown closing track. The energy slows here, but by this time the change in tempo is welcome, as are surprising touches like a subtle Western-style guitar riff that slips in and out.
In Stereo is a brief burst of danceable pop that will surely satisfy longtime Bananarama fans, or fans of the sometimes underappreciated brand of high energy, uncomplicated pop jams that are meant to hit you like a delicious dessert, and to make you feel good. The sugar high is a little too potent on some spots of In Stereo, and more dynamic exploration of musical elements might have helped to even out the static moments of intense pop energy. While filling an album with this sustained kind of pop may wear on a listener, Bananarama’s return is generally a pop confection that does contain a few singles which are worth listening to for that right burst of pop perfect for the dance floor playlist.
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