Chromeo's White Women

Four albums in and Chromeo are still finding ways to make 80's funk and soul all their own. Their latest album White Women is yet another notch in the band's growing repertoire and proves that there's still fantastic stuff to be mined from the 80's and brought bang up to date. And while they haven't necessarily branched out too much since their debut, they've pretty much perfected their sound to sharp shiny day-glo point.

White Women is an overwhelmingly fun album and it opens with, quite potentially, the song of the summer, "Jealous (I Ain't With It)." The song is so ridiculously catchy and so funky that even the most rhythmically inept person would find it difficult not to move to. From there the funk just keeps coming, snowballing into a giant mass that never lets up or slows down. While there are a couple of cliche moments throughout the album the vast majority of it is solid gold. Chromeo are beyond excellent songwriters and if you just sit and listen to the production on this record you can hear it; there's so much going on and so many layers of sound that it's almost impossible to keep up. The end result? A record that's in constant motion and passes the momentum on to you right between the ears. It's fantastic stuff that still has Chrmeo's wry sense of humor but also sees them branching out with a multitude of collaborators and extremely lush production.

While it's obvious throughout White Women that Chromeo have matured and they've polished their songwriting skills to an amazing level of clarity, the band hasn't lost any of it's enthusiasm. It could have been easy for Chromeo, they could have just coasted and rested on their laurels of albums past, but instead, they've written another strong album that's just as impressive as the first three. White Women is funky, silly, sexy, and superb. From the hilarious, "Sexy Socialite," to pulsating synthetic throb of, “Old 45s,” White Women never loses steam and is easily one of the best albums of 2014.

Chromeo Dress Business Casual

Oh those wacky Canadians they come from the land of ice and snow and if they're in a band, chances are they sound like Arcade Fire. That is everyone but Chromeo. They might be from the frigid Great White North, but they're too enraptured by the glorious funk of 1984 to even consider being an indie rock band and this is a very good thing.

Picking up where their last two albums left off, Chromeo waste no time in laying down the funk. From the second you hear the vocder frenzy begin, you know you are in for one freaky party. Business Casual is a devastating album of 80's influenced synth pop and funk that sounds something like a Cameo record morphed with Kraftwerk and then updated via the Daft Punk funky network. Business Casual is a non-stop party that would make Prince blush and give the ladies the vapors. This album is hot, sweaty, and all over the dance floor. It wants to dance, it's going to dance, and it's not going to stop until someone drags it off the floor and kicks it out of the club.

"Hot Mess," "Night By Night," "Don't Turn The Lights On," are all floor fillers. They've got more moves than Barry Sanders at his best. Put it this way, if they don't make you move in some way, shape, or form, then you probably are dead. While not quite as good as Fancy Footwork, Business Casual is still light years ahead of the pack. This is yet another solid genre defining album, and Chromeo don't seem in any hurry to slow down or tamper with their formula. They've cranked out three albums of non-stop party jams that sound as if their lives depended on them and have yet to fall flat, so why even consider a change? I can honestly say since the rise of electro, house, dubstep, etc etc Chromeo have consistently raised the bar and created songs and albums that are always ridiculously good.

Packed with singles, catchy melodies, sounds that seemed to have been harvested from the Moroder back catalog and digitized, Business Casual is more retro cool than is legally allowed in the lower 48 (and probably Canada as well). Chromeo have done it again and if there was ever any doubt that they could keep up their record for penning hits, that doubt can be put to rest. Business Casual is the kind of party record everyone needs in their collection, it's an instantaneous dance party that explodes out of the box and can't be stopped. Without a doubt one of my top 25 records of 2010 and Chromeo are easily one of my favorite bands on the planet right how...they're that good.