The Ting Tings’ fifth studio album is an unexpected delight that doesn’t mess with subverting or modernizing easy listening rock, and instead, just does it pretty damn well. Bliss follows. 

Most listeners will know The Ting Tings from their early hits “That’s Not My Name” and “Shut Up and Let Me Go.” The married English duo Katie White and Jules De Martino gigged around the Manchester underground scene before their 2008 debut album hit no. 1 in the UK, snagging them a Best New Artist Grammy nod – and fame they found constrictive. They left Manchester punk for Berlin industrial art pop. And then Ibiza disco. And then L.A. minimalism. 

The genre roamers’ fifth album, HOME, is one of their best camouflage acts yet. It’s hard to believe the whispers-on-a-wind opener “Danced On The Wire” come from the same duo who found ubiquity with insistent, choppy electronic punk. Perhaps that’s because this record doesn’t sound like an experiment or a phase: it blends right in to the relaxed rock canon.

De Martino’s full-bodied voice is the MVP of this album. It anchors airy, open instrumentation and mellows out White’s soprano. When De Martino’s voice drops out or disappears far into the background, as on “Good People Do Bad Things,” you miss it. That said, on tracks where White lets her voice float, her Joan Baez/Joni Mitchell modulation is gorgeous. HOME is a masterclass in harmony: clean guitar, White’s melody and both vocalists’ backings gently touch like sheets of chiffon floating to the ground. Not to mention the plentiful unusually welcome guitar solos.

The record is best when it sticks to acoustic basics like this – it feels straight out of Laurel Canyon save for glimpses of unnecessary reverb, as in the end of “Down,” and five minute track times. Further, the Ting Tings’ lyrics aren’t as thunderous as their heroes’. Where Stevie Nicks’ abstract, earthy lyrics felt Eldritch in their force and magnitude, like a raging ocean, HOME’s lyrics are a gentle mountain stream: less urgent, quotidian. They blend into the background, containers for De Martino and White’s voices more than anything else. De Martino and White do stand and deliver once, on the title track, and it grooves: “Home” pounds and drives and takes over your body Tusk-style. This is to say – the record is strong because of its easy meandering ethos, but it would be bulletproof if concision and force made more frequent appearances. 

Otherwise, HOME feels fallen from the sky to save those who wanted better from the Daisy Jones and the Six soundtrack or even Lucius’ latest record, which unsuccessfully strove for this kind of naturalistic folk-informed woods music. Seventies rock nostalgia has popped up in the zeitgeist recently with Daisy Jones and musical play Stereophonic: some entries are hyperrealistic renderings, while others feel like a “Cool Disco Chick!” bagged Halloween costume come to life. This Ting Tings contribution is refreshingly straightforward: it’s not nu-classic the way Dua Lipa is nu-disco, nor is it a subversion of the form, nor a Party City pastiche. It could be accused of plainly aping the classic sound – if it didn’t do it so damn well. 

Influences flash before a listener’s eyes: Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers, Neil Young and The Eagles on “Danced On The Wire”; Linda Ronstadt and Emmylou Harris on “Down,” Fleetwood Mac on “Dreaming,” Steely Dan on “Good People Do Bad Things” and “Song For Meadow,” Bob Dylan on “Mind Thunder,” even ABBA on “Winning.”

HOME isn’t perfect. Its commitment to embodied easy listening eclipses lyrical power; it lulls, and rarely rouses. Subsequently, any duel with its influences it’ll lose. But for lovers of Americana finery enjoying a summer day by the river – or wishing they were – it’s a welcome hour of deft, focused classic rock.