Light and breezy psych pop

The French psych-pop duo has been cranking out blissfully washed-out pop songs since 2009. With their newest album, Shadow People, The Limiñanas have a style of throwing ideas against the wall and seeing if they work. This time they surprisingly did.

Shadow People has an unorthodox mixture of tracks, changing from descending psych instrumentals, to English-ridden tracks, to spoken word tracks in the band’s native French. This isn’t necessarily a bad formula since 40 minutes of reverb-heavy droning rock would be tiresome. There are nice changeups in the tracklist, like the opener “Ouverture,” with its desert-rock drumbeat and warped guitars transitions, to the tremolo drenched spoken word cut “Le Premier Jour.”

The third and fourth tracks, “Istanbul Is Sleepy” and “Shadow People,” seem like the most American-friendly songs, which include some great guitar fuzz and glockenspiel flourishes. Vocalist Marie Limiñana offers some nice verses and is a nice contrast to her bandmate Lionel Limiñana. Both band members seem to bounce ideas and help their collaborators on the album, such as Bertrand Belin on “Dimanche,” which is possibly the most atmospheric song on the album and sounds like a snippet from the Martian soundtrack.

Cuts like “The Gift” sound straight out of The War on Drugs playbook and is one of the breezier songs on the album. Then comes “Motorizatti Marie,” which is a grittier and more textured tune than the one before it. The mixing of the pianos and synth loops are great on this track as well. The album ends with a clash of spiritualized-sounding bass and drums with gloomy flamenco trumpets on “De la part des copains.” The horn compositions sound tasteful, along with other cuts that pull from Southern European sounds.

If there’s one downfall, it might be the French spoken word passages. Though the music makes up for what the passages don’t deliver, the vocals aren’t that expressive and sound misplaced. Also, there are a few cuts that lack a certain structure or grittiness that other songs deliver, especially in the second half. Overall, it’s a very cool album with lots of imagination to create some of the soundscapes. Since the band hasn’t had much of a presence in the United States, this album might help get them some recognition for their creativity.