The Naked & Famous strip down to the ache of heartbreak in new album Simple Forms, an electronic rock emotional release that attempts to rise and soar to amazing heights. The Los Angeles-based Kiwi group would have all the pop sensibility if Simple Forms were an extended play. Unfortunately, all that follows thereafter loses the interest gained in the opening of the record. Oh, beloved heartbreak.
The premise is touching and captivating: a pair of lead vocalists within the band breakup after an eight-year relationship and for a while the theme actual seems genuinely engaging. Opening single “Higher” hits all the right buttons from being edgy yet endearing, unearthing emotional toil in soft to harsh sweetness. “The Water Beneath Youth” has cool synth-pop warbles, fun breakdowns and beautiful harmonies. Alternative rock urgency of “My Energy” comes out as "one big joke" as the future apparently swallowed all that energy up. The electro-bass crunch of “Last Forever” carries a track on trying to let go and a curious Acapella-styled ending should have very well ended it all. Yet it didn’t.
Simple Forms isn’t all bad, but the amount of restraint given here is the real heartbreak. The slowly churning electric smoothness in “Losing Our Control” inquires on what’s being said, ever so slowly. The alternative rock, electro buzzing “Backslide” is a mid-tempo heart jerker that treks along from its weighted loss of love themes. “Laid Low” almost sounds disingenuous, a genuinely fun electronic rock track that sounds achingly sad.
While the midway arc sounds like it ought to be reaching a second wind, stopping to really listen in reveal otherwise. The rocking chug of “The Runners” goes on about staying "in the rain" that it hardly captures interest. You can just feel the unreleased tension brooding in “Falling” and yet its soft electric rock carries on quietly, unconvincingly. Closing track “Rotten” admittedly has rather cool electric effects in its sweetly soft rock forgiveness, though the final outing of layered vocal echoes is soon forgotten.
For their third outing The Naked & Famous have released a very personal degree of Simple Forms that is all about something quite emotional, sensitive and touching. Yet for all that potential displayed from its outset, on a whole the album feels disappointingly lacking.