Dragonette - Twennies (Deluxe Version) (2023)

With her resonantly cherubic croon and wiry stage presence, singer Martina Sorbara was, as always, the devilishly stylish focal point of Dragonette. It's an image she cogently re-examines on 2022's Twennies, her triumphant first album as the sole member of the Juno Award-winning pop group she co-founded with multi-instrumentalist and ex-husband Dan Kurtz in 2005. The album follows 2016's Royal Blues, which was itself recorded in the wake of the end of Sorbara's marriage and creative partnership with Kurtz. Sorbara began to chart her own creative course with Dragonette, a period that also found her giving birth to a son with her partner, chef Cory Vitiello. All of these changes inform Twennies, an album that feels like a more introspective update of the group's pulsing, synthy pop, albeit one that still retains all of the clubby attitude that marked the best of Dragonette's previous albums. Helping Sorbara bring this vibrant balance to life is producer Dan Farber, known for his own genre-crossing EDM albums and hip-hop productions with Dizzee Rascal and Lizzo. Dragonette has always blurred the lines between dance music and indie pop, and Twennies is no exception. Cuts like "Seasick" and "Hysteria" are shimmering anthems built around dusky, late-afternoon bass grooves and sun-dappled guitar and keyboard lines. Yet more sugar rush-inducing is the kinetic "New Suit," in which Sorbara proclaims her newfound independence and emotional maturity with the exuberant "Change coming, feel me in my brand new suit." That the song smartly evokes the swaggering leather and pinstripe dance sound of early-'90s Madonna feels intentional. Also evocative is the moody, Day-Glo synth atmosphere of the Giorgio Moroder-esque title track, in which she ruminates on her past as an electro-clash "it girl" of the 2010s, singing "All that attention in the end is a distortion." With Twennies, Sorbara embraces soulful clarity, not to mention her knack for memorable pop grooves that comes with age and experience. It's a sound you can definitely feel.