WORTH A LOOK?: ****

OUT: 21/9/18

TRACKLIST: Comme Si; Girlfriend; The Walker; Doesn’t Matter; 5 Dollars; Goya Soda; Damn; What’s-her-face; Feel So Good; Make Some Sense; The Stranger

We 1st saw Christine And The Queens live at Glastonbury two years ago just hours after the result of the UK’s Brexit referendum had become clear.

• Read on for reasons including where you can see the band on tour this Autumn

It was a peculiar day which began with the resignation of Prime Minister David Cameron and then saw us fall in love with Héloïse Letissier on the Other Stage as she handed out flowers to the crowd and deployed a troupe of dancers to accentuate album Chaleur Humaine, which marries hip hop beats to a luxurious electronic sheen.

That album sold 1.3 million with the majority bought in France but a respectable 220,000 finding homes in the UK which means that its follow up could aptly be described as being awaited eagerly.

Lead-off track Girlfriend reinforces the androgeny with which (real name) Héloïse has become synonymous and moves the musical territory onto the 80s funk familiar to those that have seen the band live and play a cover version of Chaka Khan’s 1983 chart topper I Feel For You.

Completists will enjoy the opportunity to possess these songs in both their English and French language incarnations.

Lyrically there’s a sense that what we’re presented with are fragments of ideas rather than fully thought out statements and this ambiguity fits with the gender fluid images that accompany the record.

Best track is lead-off song Comme Si which boasts the lyric ‘We are making love’ with a playful soundtrack reminiscent of Janet Jackson circa her Jam and Lewis imperial period.

Other key tracks are the skittery beats of Doesn’t Matter asking ‘If God does exist’ and cute 5 Dollars which initially reminds of Whitney’s I Wanna Dance With Somebody with a ‘Baby blues’ hook.

At a time when the UK is at risk of being far too inward-looking, Christine And The Queens are a reminder of the joys of a more cosmopolitan and carefree attitude.

Christine And The Queens play 2 dates in London on a world tour where we join them in November.

• Picture via Facebook courtesy Christine And The Queens. Tickets
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