Faced with the obsession of the musical media – and we are not spared – with reinvention, La Roux is committed to perfecting his own sound. ‘Babyline’, the second preview of ‘Old Flames’, their first album in six years, can be confused with more of the same, but it contains more nuances than it seems.
As was the case in ‘Cabin Fever’, the compositional style of ‘Supervision’, La Roux’s last album, is still present in ‘Babyline’: La Roux once again opts for a mid-tempo song, without excessive changes of rhythm, but with enough hook to catch you. And it conveys all the good vibes that its lyrics promise “when you can finally see after the rain, it’s time to start again.”
Elly Jackson has explained that ‘Babyline’ “is about overcoming the storm”; Perhaps, for this reason, the mood of ‘Babyline’ is much happier than that of ‘Cabin Fever’. In fact, the chorus, which precisely contains that phrase, has all the flavor of a personal, and possibly universal, anthem?
The sophisticated production especially contributes to this, anchoring an elegant fusion of futuristic R&B and synth-pop, rich in layers and constantly developing. The song blossoms little by little, as demonstrated by the moment when the beat gains strength in the second part of each chorus. It is true that the vibraphone air percussions that run through the song refer directly to the tropical aesthetic of ‘Supervision’, but the tone of ‘Babyline’ is decidedly darker.
The melody is not as immediate as those of ‘Bulletproof’ or ‘Tropical Chancer’, but its richness ends up imposing itself. And although the proud keyboard melody does convey a certain feeling of repetition – it is almost the same as the “du du du” of ‘Automatic Driver’ -, the song will end up convincing whoever gives it a chance.
