Album Review: Djustin IS Electro-Pop In Voyagers
If you are an electro-pop/ electronica fan than Djustin’s Voyagers is a MUST. This debut album is not trying to be anything, but a disco-ball spinning above your day, and begging you to MOVE. This new Swedish/American duo, featuring Rose Suau (US) and Johan Angergård (Sweden / The Legends / Club 8, etc) are making the most evocative debut in recent memory, by giving nine tracks that drip with suggestive synths, scintillating whispers, and tugging keys that spiritually beg you to lock into every song.
It is no secret that music can turn up physical heat. From making you want to run, dance, or lose yourself in a lover, music can mold a mood, and Voyagers has encapsulated the movement and mood you would find in one of the top electronica clubs in Ibiza. The album has that party-island vibe, but not as much in “chaos” or “debauchery”. Instead, it focuses on the bliss and smooth dreaminess that is the club; a place where you go to escape your day, and wonder if the night will carry a better sense of happiness and potential love. The band filters lust, love, and hurt throughout the album as each song appears like the epiphanies, emotions, and scenarios you would experience at the club. “Waiting”, “Shift” and “Millions” are not only danceable, but lyrically poignant to the highs and lows of wanting true love in and altered reality, i.e. the club. Honestly, who has not gone out to peruse the nightlife scene and thought their “Romeo” or “Juliet” was in some balcony? In this sense, the vocals of Rose and Johan become the universal embodiments of “us” or rather the sentimental ones that hope nightlife can transcend or transpose its excitement into our daily one. Johan has a meaty voice that reminds me of Phil Collins as it fleshes through synths in songs “Dancing” and “Millions”. Whether he uses a falsetto or girths through lyrics, he shines in his hooky brevity, of which I do wish there was more back and forth between him and Rose in harmonies and verses. Yet, that is such a minor complaint like, saying you wished you had more pepperoni in your already delicious slice. I merely say this because Rose’s voice was made for electro-pop; it might as well be a new synth you can add to songs through computer, which is why their dynamic is so intriguing.
There is a sweet, briskness to Rose’s voice that almost feels digitized. As the bassline for songs “Illumination”, “Shift”, and “New Preset” begin their simmering, her voice sparkles as if you adjust their shine with one click of your mouse. She was made to play with the machinated rhythms of electronica, but still oozes a sense of lyrical curiosity and wonder as she beams through passions of wanting someone to hold. Whether in deep, electric tones or sprightly ones, Voyagers is an album to touch life, observe love, and sway in the club as if each light-beam can shine through you. For More Information On Djustin And To Buy Voyager On May 5 Click Here.
