Confidence Man’s mission: to get everyone dancing again. The group’s third album, 3AM (LA LA LA), is their most serious record—if you can consider anything they do to be serious. This time, there are fewer lyrical winks and nudges, and more reliance on the transcendence of the all-night rager. The songs are sweatier, the band is sloshed, and the album’s sound aligns with club genres popular in the U.K. in the ’80s and ’90s: think acid house, trance, and 2-step. 3AM has plenty of floor-fillers, but the album’s repetitive second half might have you ready to ditch the party before the lights come up.
Vocalists Janet Planet and Sugar Bones claim to have made much of the album at the appointed time while under the influence (call it method recording). 3AM has the feel of the final hour before last call, courtesy of mask-wearing producers Reggie Goodchild and Clarence McGuffie. There’s an everlasting untz untz, snippets of the kinds of conversations with strangers that seem to happen over a cigarette (and/or on MDMA), and lyrics that don’t pretend to make any sense. The wall-knocking metallic synths of “Control” are as sticky as the club juice on the soles of your slouchy boots.
The bacchanal starts before you hit play. Opener “Who Knows What You’ll Find?” fades in as if you’re walking into a rave that’s been bumping since last week. In this mode, the band relies on tried and true house elements; the squirrely synth and pronounced four-on-the-floor rhythm is extremely reminiscent of the French touch classic “Music Sounds Better With You.” If Stardust’s sleek hit considered how a special someone can make anything seem rosy, Confidence Man get a little murkier, asking an old flame to come back to the dancefloor for one last kiss (and a light).
Confidence Man aren’t as likely to give you a toothache as Eurodance acts like Toy-Box or Vengaboys, but eventually 3AM begins to lose steam. Penultimate track “Wrong Idea” is already one of the least exciting, but its brooding atmospherics, big EDM drop, and Planet’s chanting sing-talk about living in the moment is nearly the same as an earlier song, the 9-to-5 sendoff “So What.” Neither track feels particularly well-distinguished. Other times, the band’s pastiche will have you itching for the original item. Sugar Bones-led “Sicko” is a virtual reproduction of Nine Inch Nails’ “Closer” down to the trip-hop ambiance, scuzzy synthesizer, and amplified angst: “I’m talking to God/I’m breakin’ the law,” Bones groans. As the tracks bleed together, exhaustion sets in.
Occasionally they still nail it. British reggae singer Sweetie Irie’s rowdy commands hold down “Real Move Touch,” a mid-album adrenaline shot that captures Confidence Man at their zany best: sleazy party animals here for a good time, at least until they jet off to the next club. The track highlights a willingness to experiment—after all, aren’t the best parties often the most chaotic? Here, there’s a dash of Deee-Lite, a splash of Crystal Waters, and a pinch of Pitbull. You’d be remiss to not get up and dance.
The trance cut “Far Out” is perhaps 3AM’s most earnest. Amid squelchy synths and breaths of faux woodwind, the lyrics evoke the ramblings of a first-time tripper: “Don’t you ever wonder if there’s more to life? Don’t you ever wonder why the stars are bright?” Sure, OK—but wither Confidence Man’s deadpan humor? A perfectly deployed mispronunciation of an A-list name or a desperate shout from a friend who needs some air was always part of their appeal. 3AM’s muted irony dulls the sparkle, leaving the cracks more visible. The album doesn’t have any disastrous lows—but it never quite surpasses that initial dopamine rush, either.
