Little Dragon have long seen their sounds as a way out of reality. “Our aim is to make music for people to escape into,” drummer Erik Bodin told Spin in 2011, when the Swedish four-piece released their third album, Ritual Union. That mission statement summarizes a decade-plus of snappy synth-pop throwbacks, none of which have quite eclipsed the success of the group’s 2010 guest turn on Gorillaz’s Plastic Beach. Still, even without any hits of their own, Little Dragon have, across five albums, built a body of work largely catchy and generally upbeat enough to earn a respectable following and soundtrack trips to the shopping mall.
Little Dragon’s first-ever EP, Lover Chanting, arrives just a year after the middling Season High. It returns to their escapist mantra: “Dance for peace and unity in this world of madness!” reads the recommendation that accompanies these three songs. “Embrace the great mystery of everything that your brain can’t grasp and lose track in the most beautiful sense.” The cavalier sentiment is the glossy finish atop minimal substance; these tunes are pleasant enough, but they offer little more reward than fast-acting, fast-fading dopamine hits.
Little Dragon check several of the requisite boxes for movement, at least. The title track and opener is cut from loping disco synths and a bludgeoning backbeat that feel club-friendly and familiar enough from Little Dragon’s past catalog. The hook, a rare vocal performance by Boden, is undeniably infectious, though its refrain of “Do you wanna be my girl/I wanna be your man” is so hilariously shallow that even Yukimi Nagano, Little Dragon’s lead singer and primary lyricist, “got a bit worried about [Bodin’s] lyrical abilities.” But for a song that purportedly prioritizes motion, it never gains momentum; halfway through, its points have already been made, but it harps on nevertheless. (As though by way of acknowledgement, the EP actually ends with an edit of the track that chops off two minutes.)
“In My House” has the same problem. In her best moments, Nagano’s delivery is captivatingly idiosyncratic—her voice nasal and slippery, applying an oddly sensual tone to sterile words. But here, even her best efforts don’t break up the monotony of the song’s dancehall-lite wobble as it stretches toward the six-minute mark. “Timothy,” the EP’s final full track, is its shortest and best, with a whistle riff to rival that one by fellow Swedes Peter Bjorn and John and a star-is-born narrative that offers a ballast its counterparts lack.
Too bad: An EP is often a great place for a band to experiment and test out new ideas between albums, to make mistakes and start again, especially when their trademark sound seems tired. But Little Dragon show none of those desires. For them, the pursuit of escape has created another sort of trap: the comfort of the familiar.
