December: 18 albums you need to hear this month

Empire Of The Sun 'Two Vines' (Virgin/EMI)

Australian duo Empire Of The Sun major in theatrical sci-fi opulence that sits well in the post-EDM universe, even while still not being entirely part of it. Singer Luke Steele tours the band, putting on lavish shows and usually wearing outrageous outfits; his production partner Nick Littlemore prefers to stay out of the limelight, although his Pnau project achieved a chart-topping LP with their 2012 Elton John collab ‘Good Morning To The Night’. Many of the songs on ‘Two Vines’ are catchy enough to make similar success plausible: the album was recorded in Hawaii at the same studio where Kanye West cut ‘My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy’, and Steele has spoken of spending his days surfing and his nights making music.

Its best points find Steele demonstrating the songwriting chops that made his Sleepy Jackson project so likeable, on tunes such as the bubbling title track and the epic ‘Digital Life’. Closing song ‘To Her Door’ has a nursery rhyme-simplicity: its loved-up chorus (“I feel better when we are together/I know it’s simple but I don’t care”) could be massive, but may also become very annoying, very quickly. Tropical dance-pop cuts such as ‘High And Low’, a song seemingly about psychedelic drugs, are far better examples of their skill. There remains something unknowable about them; their presence is always somewhat enigmatic, served only by the gilded sheen of their music which remains ornate but, crucially, as approachable as ever. Thomas H Green

7/10