Empire of the Sun give us some more of their debut 'Walking on a Dream' on this second effort; the house party slash festival drum n synth they showed they knew well they have mastered on this record, songs like 'Alive' are instantly memorable and danceable. What feels like a shame is that some of the individuality they promised with their first album seems to have rubbed off along the way. They have been touring non stop for almost five years, not holed up writing anywhere but writing on the road - your tour partners are no doubt going to rub off - but although their sound was always going to be heavily produced, it goes one small step further to sounding processed.
But they are on a big label.
'Ice on the Dune' gives us a satisfactory rearrangement of what was attractive about 'Walking on a Dream', a handful of the songs staying catchy but the rest fading out of sight pretty quickly. Empire of the Sun have new ground to cover on their next release to stay in focus, instead of slipping below the surface of indie/house/pop.
