After Random Access Memories, The 20/20 Experience, and Reflektor, we were tired of protracted album release stunts. Now we have Surprise-Album Fatigue. Granted, Tanlines don’t answer to as big of an audience as Justin Timberlake or Beyoncé. But they deserve an immense amount of credit for constructing a rollout for Highlights that likely could’ve gone on for another two years without complaint. The Brooklyn duo’s second LP was teased with a Netflix-aping website, and "premiered" with a fake "conference call", which featured some "Sound Advice" from "SNL"'s Vanessa Bayer. Eric Emm and Jesse Cohen’s charming social media presence had long established that they’re "one of us" and they’re the change we want to see in Music Nerd Twitter: clever, but not snarky, self-aware but not overly self-conscious, willing to poke fun at the inherent silliness of PR, album cycles, and branding without framing the whole affair as meaningless. Now, very little of this innovation or irreverence or ingenuity carries over to Highlights, but the goodwill Tanlines have generated isn’t all for naught. It just allows one to see the divergence between the rollout and the record as an unfortunate coincidence rather than a cynical cover-up.
There is a kernel of truth behind the Tanlines-as-TV joke: think of them as the offbeat comedy that got picked up after accumulating a fanbase while muscling through an erratic first season. For the second go-round, reinvention would be unwise or impossible, so the goal is to capitalize on the quirky chemistry of its leads and modify it to establish replicable consistency. Or, to make it ready for syndication; Tanlines are much more effective as a singles act than as the subject of an immersive binge listen.
The duo are a study in compatibility rather than contrast, each favoring brassy, spotless tones, Emm’s vocals sounding as much a synthesized version of a real instrument as the actual synthesizers. While male vocalists in this realm typically rely on a bass register to convey sage wisdom, sex appeal, or a sinister aura, for Emm it’s a means of foregrounding Tanlines’ everydude appeal. It works in conjunction with the often maddening mundanity of Highlights lyrics: "I fall to pieces when you’re away," he sings on the opener, the implication being that this meltdown will be short-lived and she’ll definitely be back, probably sometime after the holiday weekend. They’re modest songs for modest moments, occupying the space between the hookup and the breakup, of getting hired and getting fired, that manageable lovesickness, regret, and anxiety that underlie just about every URL and IRL interaction.
But the essence of Tanlines lies in the contrast created by the simplicity of their songwriting and the luxury of the sound design. Imagine a child winning a contest where his Construx design is turned into an actual skyscraper; that's Highlights. There isn’t much distance from what could’ve started out as FruityLoops demos or factory presets—Cohen’s arrangements still don’t provide much texture or polyphony. But the post-production is crucial all the same, allowing Highlights to sound like a legitimate pop record rather than shareware.
This time out, they recorded in a church with Grizzly Bear’s Chris Taylor rather than in Miami with Jimmy Douglass (Foreigner, Timbaland)—it’s the reverse of what you’d expect from a band trying to update their sound from 2012 to 2015. But Tanlines aren’t really about staying on trend anyways. Since they work with a limited number of tools, it’s often difficult to distinguish one Highlights song from the next, or even remember them 10 minutes after they've ended. However, when it’s a Tanlines song, you definitely know it’s them. It’s an impressive accomplishment for an act that once appeared destined to be a footnote from Brooklyn Indie Rock 2010, a couple of scene mainstays who got more out of tropical keyboard presets than any New Yorker since Swizz Beatz.
That said, Highlights hightails down the same escape routes that have been overbooked since the turn of the decade: Balearic, Drive, Caribbean rhythms, New Romantic synth-pop. As with Mixed Emotions, there’s the opener that doesn't oversell its anthemic ambitions ("Pieces"), the New Wave cruiser ("Slipping Away"), the one with an acoustic guitar ("Invisible Ways"). The most notable update in their software results in a track that still could’ve fit on their proper 2012 debut: "Two Thousand Miles" is Tanlines’ EDM moment, though the strobing synths and triplet beats are strangely muffled, meant more for an apartment party with noise restrictions rather than the festival tents where the duo have become a frequent and effective crowd pleaser.
Tanlines have proven more than capable of hosting a celebration, and they can attract a surprisingly massive flock of hands-in-the-air party people as well. That shouldn’t change, as Highlights is more consistent than its predecessor, which was propped up by a few tentpole singles. But Tanlines could also be the center of the affair, particularly when Emm fearlessly leaned into big pop hooks during "All of Me" and "Real Life". Those moments are sorely lacking on Highlights, which becomes defined by its deceiving sort of consistency: maintaining a baseline pleasantry that makes the title into the only unintentional punchline of the whole campaign.
