World, You Need a Change of Mind

World, You Need a Change of Mind certainly isn't a bad album, and the technical execution is first-rate. Its failure is ultimately one of ambition. This is music to be enjoyed while doing something else, not something you fall in love with.

It's actually never quite clear what type of audience the album is trying to reach, but the whole thing seems a lot more cohesive when you realise there is no point, and no direction, and this makes World, You Need a Change of Mind a lot more fun. It's an album full of twists and turns, seemingly whenever Bainbridge gets bored of one sound.

It's certainly a brave move to furnish it with such exotic pieces, but one that pays off beautifully. [Apr 2012, p.81]

With high-gloss production, shameless retro references and big-thumbed slap bass, Kindness's album is frequently preposterous. Great pop music often is. [Apr 2012, p.89]

Deftly blending the celebratory and contemplative, Bainbridge has created a dance album that works as much on the mind as on the body. [Apr 2012, p.99]

Amid the smartly rendered pastiche of this debut, Bainbridge references Prince and Janet Jackson, yet turns those joyous sounds unpleasantly arch.

For a debut album, there are precious few mis-steps, apart from perhaps a little too much instrumental noodling. But, aside from that, it is remarkably consistent.

For the rest of us who don't mind getting our groove on to music served with a side of narcissism, it's not difficult to admit Bainbridge might be onto something.

It's classy and airy, although so stylishly produced (with French house guru Cassius) that it can feel like a soundtrack to an imaginary Ideal Home exhibition of laboratory-like perfection.

It doesn't seem content with just being an enjoyable album, which makes it impossible for this listener to be content with its failure to live up to its own hype.

What's missing is the emotional heat.

Its sound design may be impeccable, but World… sorely lacks grit.

While World, You Need A Change Of Heart is pleasing in places, solid it certainly ain't.

For all its capricious cherry-picking of the historic benchmarks of sensuality and synthetics, there's still a sense of genuine invention that permeates the whole album.

[An] exceptionally artful debut.

There are much worse records out there but at the end of the day, and somewhat ironically, it's just much too kind.