Ivy - All Hours

Ivy - Fifteen years after Adam Schlesinger (Fountains of Wayne), Andy Chase (Brookville) and Parisian singer Dominique Durand hit their stride with a pair of mid-90's albums of chic, always compelling adult lounge pop, the NY-based trio returns with a long-awaited new album...On hiatus since 2004, the band has shifted focus from guitar-centric writing to a slicker, sleeker beat-driven synth and keyboard drive -- a self-described "rebirth" that tips it's stylish hat to a slew of 80's U.K. bands with sticky Euro-pop glamour // Release: All Hours (September 20, Nettwerk) // Sounds like: Durand's breathy, chilly continental vocals seem tailor-made for the new electronic foundation...despite the radical departure, the band's trademark, hook-laden melodies show up as big as ever, but now they're wearing some fresh nightclubbing duds //  

Quote: "We really had no idea where we were going for a long time. But in my mind, I knew I wanted to go back to some kind of innocence, and also a feeling of energy and excitement. I wanted to make a record based on those very basic sensations." -- Dominique Durand / What we like: it takes some time to dig below the relentless dance beat of lead single "Distant Lights", but we found that, like U.K.'s Goldfrapp, there's more here song-wise than meets the shaded eye...the entrancing "Lost In the Sun" revives the guitars but the effect is simply to add another layer of rhythm to the increasingly electronica thrust...

Ivy - "Distant Lights" (from All Hours)

Ivy - "Lost In the Sun" (from All Hours)