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Jun 21, 2011It's not the exquisite crispness of Yacht's bass lines that makes Shangri-La so appealing (though that certainly doesn't hurt). Rather, it's the band's knack for giving weighty ideas the lighthearted gift of groove.
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Jun 27, 2011Ultimately, it might not be a more serious album than anything previous, but Shangri-La captures the spirit of uncertainty and restlessness that 21st century modernity has created.
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Dec 7, 2011Musically however, Shangri-La keeps things fairly light and upbeat, with plenty of memorable, chanted vocal hooks and a satisfying mixture of live and sequenced instrumentation.
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Aug 11, 2011While the conceptual ambitions occasionally overstep the mark, they rarely get in the way of the cerebral and gluteal-vibratory enjoyment that is to be found. It's a work no less beneficial than entertaining.
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UncutJul 15, 2011Ironic jape or not, Shangri-La captures the DFA label aesthetic perfectly, blending electro post-punk, disco and art-pop with conceptual elan, and icing the cake with dance-friendly production. [Jul 2011, p.103]
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Jul 7, 2011On Shangri-La YACHT have proven that no matter what the concept is, it always comes down to the music.
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Jun 28, 2011Even in the context of what is turning out to be a stonking year for electro-pop, YACHT have concocted a record to match their peers in Metronomy, Cut Copy and Friendly Fires.
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Jun 21, 2011If dance is the religion YACHT's preaching this summer, consider us converted.
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Jun 21, 2011Working on many levels: entertaining, thought-provoking, musically satisfying and yes, still pretty funny too in parts; YACHT might not be genuinely looking to save your souls, but they certainly have more to offer than most other sects that you might care to join.
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Jun 20, 2011There's a certain magic in being able to shake your booty to music with heavy themes, and YACHT nails that duality perfectly here, whether they're discussing God, love, or the space-time continuum.
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Jun 21, 2011Shangri-La doesn't do much to breathe fresh life into them [notions of utopia, apocalypse, enlightenment, and true love]. But in its own naïve way, YACHT rejuvenates the scenery in this vision of paradise by casting things in an extremely literal light.
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Jul 5, 2011My own axes aside this is a fun and highly commendable record; well produced and with some excellent pop songs in tandem with enough stratagem to be considered a real credit to the band: scattered hints of genius, however, are not the same as the real thing.
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Jun 30, 2011There's a strong air of the post-punk '80s, and at the same time, the album's driving rhythms make it more DFA-like in spirit, like they're taking up part of the mantle of the now-defunct LCD Soundsystem, perhaps.
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Jun 24, 2011On Shangri-La, YACHT add sinewy live instrumentation to their previously chilly electro, and when frontwoman Claire Evans, possessed of Kim Gordon's cool authority and Annie's playfulness, espouses her utopian "belief system," the bubblegum beats make it easy to buy into the philosophizing.
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Jul 5, 2011Shangri-La offers more than enough frantic beats, fidgety bass lines, spiky guitar leads, soaring piano riffs, delirious vocal harmonies, and, yes, cowbells to fit in on any house-party playlist.
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Aug 2, 2011It is a step in the right direction and, despite its failings, a potential sign of good things to come. As far as community art projects go, I'm inclined to say that this one still has legs, even if it doesn't prove that Portlanders can get people to use theirs.
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Jul 28, 2011Here's YACHT, surfacing for another round on DFA, continuing roughly where they left off on 2009's See Mystery Lights, with the kind of stripped-down, danceable fare that made their move to DFA appropriate, and a continued/expanding salvo of cheeky, pseudo-cultish conceptualism.
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Jul 6, 2011Whatever they ought to be doing is lost in mess of lame ideas buoyed by big hooks and pop flourishes.
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Jun 30, 2011It's hit-and-miss stuff, exhausting as often as it is exciting, and perhaps never quite as out-there as you might expect.
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Jun 27, 2011The result is an ill-conceived concept album, one that, though characteristically sharp musically, feels flat and overwrought.
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Jun 27, 2011It would be alright if they believed this stuff, but it's all done with the detached sneer beloved of hipsters worldwide. They're faux-hippies, not real ones.