The German producer’s smooth dance-pop is meant to be played under bright festival lights—and it’s never sounded less convincing.
Dance music can only suspend your belief for so long these days. COVID has lapped us, and what used to be baked-in elements of our musical experience aren’t around anymore—the sparks of connection that fly at a club set, the momentum that builds during a live show. We need to grieve those serendipitous nights out, the ones that felt as if they simply sprung from a passing lusty synth line like Roosevelt’s 2015 song “Night Moves,” and we haven’t had the chance. But it’s 2021, and on Roosevelt’s latest album Polydans, Marius Lauber is still offering the illusion of open space and carefree thoughts.
Lauber started out as a DJ in Cologne at 19, jumping from band to band until he started making music as Roosevelt. Where some electronic pop acts might swaddle a song in gauze, Lauber’s music evokes an earnest sweetness, forming crisp melodies around his smooth vocals. The snappy, cooled-off attitude of songs like 2013’s “Elliot” landed him on international festival stages, a lifestyle that manifested on 2019’s glossy Young Romance.
Polydans floats between glorifying the past and dreaming of a future that might not come. On “Feels Right,” Lauber sings of running into the dusk, pretending “it ain’t that hard to carry on.” The bouncing hook on “Forget” is sweet enough to dream along with your headphones. It’s almost hard to believe an album this syrupy came from within the same four walls of isolation as the rest of us. The mysterious depth that shadowed Roosevelt’s earlier work feels sugarcoated.
What to do with the deep-fried Myspace-era nostalgia and “world keeps turning” platitudes of a song like “Lovers”? It’s hard to remember a time where this would’ve hit the spot. Roosevelt’s flavor of dance-pop is meant to be played under bright festival lights, and a wide, empty transition track like “Montjuic” would be perfect for the encore—but on record, it’s just not the same.
Polydans closes with a hint of the moody, steamy dance music Roosevelt was born to make. The wistful groove of “Sign” reveals a glimmer of the grief and loss beneath the saccharine sheen: “Come back and give me a sign of your love.” Still, it’s not enough to contain your skepticism after the music stops.
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