DURAN DURAN
FUTURE PAST
BMG
★★★★★
THE BEST WAY TO MARK 40 YEARS TOGETHER? A NEW RECORD CELEBRATING EVERYTHING THAT MADE DURAN DURAN SO HUGE IN THE FIRST PLACE.
Since their 2001 reunion, Duran Duran have, through working with Timbaland and Mark Ronson, made some stunning music that was totally in keeping with contemporary trends. This culminated in 2015 with their last studio LP, Paper Gods, a brilliant, undervalued futurist landscape as forward-thinking as the slick android funk made by Janelle Monáe, guest vocalist on lead single Pressure Off. In the six years since, Duran appear to have reassessed what they stand for, concluding that, in pushing themselves forward this time, they need to sound like a band again. For all those recent albums’ inventiveness and earworms, on thing lacking was the power of Duran’s rhythm section, which, with players as persuasive as John and Roger Taylor, was quite some mistake. That’s rectified to mighty effect here. As the album’s title implies, Duran Duran haven’t gone completely retro, but bass and drums are more to the fore than at any point since 1986’s Notorious (though Roger didn’t play on that). As riotous single Anniversary hinted, Duran are here to party again, and anyone who feared for their dignity working with Japanese punk band Chai can be reassured by their collaboration, More Joy, a brilliantly bizarre extended chant as infectious as its title, while Tonight United is already a stormer live, a route-one blast powered by Roger’s propulsive drums.