Chris Black changed my life

"'Chris Black Changed My Life' is just as musically open-minded as its predecessor, full of fizzy anthems that feel like the band are spinning through their car's radio dial on a hot summer's day. There's the groovy "Grim Generation" (...), that sounds like the Archies remixed by Danger Mouse. We also get "Summer of Luv," a slinky collaboration with New Zealand's Unknown Mortal Orchestra, replete with soul-jazz saxophone, that brings to mind something along the lines of Beck jamming with Kamasi Washington. Yet more woozy psych-pop atmospheres pop up elsewhere, as on "Thunderdome [W.T.A.]," a folky, hip-hop-infused jam featuring the Roots' Black Thought and Mexican vocalist Natalia Lafourcade. Still, there are shadows that come with all this pop sun, and Portugal. The Man sink into several moody, if not less catchy, goths-at-the-beach-style anthems (...) that seem to speak to the band's grief over Black's death and Gourley's wry sense of irony over his own social anxiety".

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