When Saints Go Machine: Infinity Pool – review

4 out of 5 4
    • The Guardian,
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  3. When Saints Go Machine
  5. Republic of Music
  6. 2013

Don't come to this record if you want cheering up. Suffused with a melancholy that sometimes passes into foreboding, Infinity Pool can sound as if it was recorded on a promontory overlooking the end of the world. But then the end of the world would have some grandeur about it, and so does the second album by this Copenhagen four-piece. It's not unfair to describe it as electronic pop, because the song structures and Antony Hegartyesque vocals of lead singer Nikolaj Manuel Vonsild hold the whole thing together. But there's also low industrial drone, ethereal ambience and blissed-out rave alongside a reprise for the rhythms of big beat and 90s hip-hop. Thus Love and Respect features Grammy-winning MC Killer Mike, Degeneration is a dirge built around a squelch of sub-bass and Mannequin is as catchy as it is icy, even if "born and raised for traffic" is not a chorus you'll belt out in the shower. It's a thoughtful, cleverly composed work that is often quite beautiful – just in a sad way, that's all.

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