Album of the week: Harry Styles – 'Kiss All The Time. Disco, Occasionally'
In restless times, Harry Styles makes the case for the dancefloor
In the week that David Byrne brings to the UK the cavalcade of communal joy that is his Who is the Sky? tour, here’s the cavalry. As something like spring breaks across the country, Harry Styles releases an album hymning, if not the importance of good punctuation, then the power of connection, of dance, of disco, of, yes, kissing. As lead single 'Aperture' had it, we belong together. Which might be a bit tilting-at-windmills in the current (geopolitical, economic, existential) climate, but I’ll take it.
On Kiss All the Time. Disco, Occasionally, partly recorded in the techno central that is Berlin, Styles leans into abandon that’s both wilful and artful. As he explained to Haruki Murakami in their recent conversation piece for Runners World, “I wanted to recreate [what] I had on the dancefloor, being lost in instrumentation and the musicality. It was so immersive, like, this is how I want to feel when I’m on stage, too. I don’t want it to feel like a sermon I’m delivering. I wanted it to feel like, oh, we’re in this music together. Like I’m in it with you.”
Hence the titling and routing of this year’s world tour: Together, Together runs to 67 dates but comprises multi-night “global residencies” in seven cities. For this sub-three-hour pavement-pounder, music and the sharing thereof is a marathon and a sprint.
On 'Aperture', this fourth album’s opener as well as its lead single, Styles and longstanding co-writer and wingman Kid Harpoon set the pace, the song’s lyrically vague, blissed-out message of rave inclusivity lashed to a fizzy, dizzying mash of Balearic and electro. 'Ready, Steady, Go!' has a delicious, day-glo Hot Chip shimmer. 'Are You Listening Yet?' is a carnival-ready call-to-arms (or, at least, -to-the-dancefloor) complete with Styles rap, gnarly guitar solo and Basement Jaxx-style exuberance.
There’s more primo electronic-culture cherry-picking on 'Season 2 Weight Loss': a track with a winking title and an exquisitely produced percussive scaffolding that are both worthy of LCD Soundsystem, although the gospel – strong backing vocals from Wolf Alice’s Ellie Rowsell and House Gospel Choir – elevate it from sticky dancefloor to heavenly plane.
Like any good runner, Styles knows it’s also about pacing. 'Coming Up Roses', one of only two songs that bust the four-minute mark, is a lovely, pizzicato-coloured ballad that blooms into a gorgeous wash of strings courtesy of maestro arranger Jules Buckley. Then, straight after, the nominative determinism of 'Pop', a libidinous, burbling synth-pop singalong whose lyrics give us the tour title, not to mention a special image of Harry, viz. “it’s just me on my knees”. I’m not sure it’s thanks he’s giving.
We break the tape on an arms-aloft high with the final 'Carla’s Song', the album’s longest track and a heart-pounding, Eighties-synth aerobic workout. Altogether now: “I know what you like, I know what you really like, you can hear it any time.” Like the rest of the album, the message is persuasive but hardly profound. But if it isn’t the suitably euphoric, appropriately escapist, wholly on-brand main set closer on the Together, Together tour, I’ll eat my legwarmers.
