Two Door Cinema Club False Alarm

With staggeringly little fuss, Two Door Cinema Club spent a decade becoming one of Britain’s biggest bands. Their route: irrepressible indie choruses built for very large festival crowds, motivational gym playlists and TV soundtracks. Their fourth album doesn’t reject the band’s USP but does mark a subtle evolution. Perhaps buoyed by their success subtly angling 2016’s Gameshow towards dance floors, here the band take full gyrations. False Alarm is loose, alive, thoughtful and enriched by interesting guest artists—Zimbabwean Afrofusion outfit Mokoomba and Chicago rapper Open Mike Eagle—and crucially, none of it feels forced.
Supercharged singles “Talk” and “Satellite” will sit comfortably with the classics in their live set; “Break” (“from the McCartney school of songwriting,” singer Alex Trimble has said) is the most charming thing they’ve ever recorded, while the cowbell-rich and Talking Heads-indebted “Nice to See You” makes excellent use of a charismatic Open Mike Eagle verse.