Haiku Hands’ Pleasure Beast is an irreverent ode to letting loose

It’s an album title that make the records motives clear and up-front — a heavyweight, intense celebration of hedonistic desire. The record’s not too far off from this; over its runtime, you’re enveloped in frenetic, bombastic beats, cries of fun and letting loose over electronic music both modern and refreshing.

The dance-pop group’s breakthrough single, 2017’s “Not About You,” excellently encapsulates what would define their sound going forward: brightly Australian-accented voices shouting dizzying, often odd lyrics across bouncy soundscapes. It’s purely a good time, and Pleasure Beast largely focuses its energy on the same ideas. Songs like “Ma Ruler,” “Cool For You,” “Geddit,” and “Grandma” bounce to loud, assertive beats under equally confident lyrics. The record’s sidestepping opener, “All Around the World,” says to lose track of the world’s greater worries and dive headfirst into now: “All around the world there’s bombs going off / All around the world we’re still getting off,” they sing. Self-indulgent or self-saving? Their answer is clear: Don’t think about it too hard.

Of course, over 14 tracks, there’s only so much predictable, night-out lyricism to take. “Get it then, get some more, it’s time to freak;” “Shake the shackles / All the pressure building up inside of you;” “She got that bounce bounce bounce bounce baby got bounce” all pepper the album.

However, like was so evident in “Not About You,” Haiku Hands are smarter than to just fill an album with just seemingly AI-generated words. Not only are their lyrics sometimes avant-garde, they’re also very fun. On “To The Left,” a six-minute behemoth, they sing, “There’s no cash back money guarantee on the future.” The left-field “Grandma” sees them wishing for a simpler, older life: “You can leave a message at the beep / I’m done with all the updates, the platforms, the content / Can you and I just sit here and not speak?” On “Elastic Love,” the psychedelic track pairs perfectly with lyrics that very may well have been written during an acid trip: “Under my tongue there’s love / All the patterns open up.”

Pleasure Beast is as smart as it is fun. Not only does it not take itself too seriously, as all dance albums should do, but it has the wherewithal to know that most people don’t likely listen to dance albums, just shuffle through dance playlists. But Pleasure Beast seems different – iconoclastic and unskippable, it’s the brash sound of a band who knows that music dictates the emotions of our life; joy, of course, being the most important one.