Love 2

Love 2 is not a make-out album in the traditional sense. It's about the love of silence, stillness, of being a conscious human being and watching the world float by.

Air is as essential as ever, and has succeeded in writing another album of inspiration, tantalizing music. [Fall 2009, p.91]

Air remains a deceptively subtle band, but repeated listens to Love 2 reveal that Godin and Dunckel aren't just remaining true to their aesthetic here, but that even a smaller-scale album from the duo has plenty of wit and surprises to offer.

Love 2 is a triumph, effectively representing a now veteran act capable of returning to its roots yet managing still to produce novel results.

French Smoothies return to lunar landscapes.

Love 2 slithers beyond its sketchiness and proves ingratiating just the same.

"African Velvet"? "Eat My Beat"? Gauche titling aside, Jean-Benoit Dunckel and Nicolas Godin offer no shake-ups on Love 2. Instead, more than a decade into their career, the duo have nearly perfected their wistfully melodic synth- and vocoder-driven easy-listening jams.

Love 2 is not only the latest chapter in Air’s space-rock adventure, it’s a sequel that triumphs its predecessor.

Air build a soundtrack to the movie in your head that always eclectic and often lovely. [Nov 2009, p.106]

Style trumps substance in this particular breath of Air.

Air's electro-pop generally lives up to the group's name. But their fifth LP sounds a bit, well, polluted.

Perhaps the less successful tracks here might have been novel and fresh 15 years ago, but interest in library music and analogue synths was piqued long ago and some of Love 2 sounds like one example of many these days.

As ever, it's best to not to take them too seriously. [Nov 2009, p.90]

Nothing if not consistent, Nicolas Godin and Jean-Benoit Dunckel's sixth studio album sounds effortlessly Air-like. [Nov 2009, p.110]

Consistently smooth to the point of tedium, Love 2 has the unruffled air of '50s bachelor-pad cool, often recalling Enoch Light and other space-age instrumentalists, but its overbearing electronic elements negate the organic feel it would otherwise inherit from those albums, leaving an impressively dispassionate patina with almost nothing underneath.

Like any great jingle, it leaves you with nothing but a vague craving for the product, without quite knowing why you need it.

At a time when their former opening band (Phoenix) is gaining notoriety for their sexy blend of madcap lyricism and airtight songwriting, Air come across as flat and middling. [Fall 2009, p.56]

Thing is, it still sounds entirely like an Air album--just a remarkably bland one.

Love 2 is a cinematic affair--but not in a good way. [Oct 2009, p.89]

Sadly, Nicolas Godin and Jean-Benoit Dunckel’s new love is about as ill-advised as New Coke and this makes for a cluttered, uneven, and kinda hokey listen.