BLINK

Since forming in 2012, Bob Moses (Tom Howie and Jimmy Vallance) have earned a reputation for bringing depth to the dance floor, pairing sleek club rhythms with introspective songwriting and indie-rock grit. Over the years, they’ve released three albums, toured the world, scored crossover hits and earned a Grammy nomination. Time flies when you’re having fun, sure, but despite these achievements, Howie and Vallance still felt like there was so much more to do. As they began working on their fourth record, they found their demos and headspace orbiting around the question of reconciling the fleeting nature of life. That question is the beating heart of BLINK, their reflection on life’s fleeting moments and the desire to hold on to them. The duo lay down their guitars here, and while the production retains their leather jacket cool, it’s warmer, brighter, more transcendent. Glittering opener “Time of Your Life” sparks urgency from the jump, its chugging beat and soaring hook urging you to throw caution to the wind and give in to impulse—a feeling echoed across the brisk deep house of “Waiting on the World” and “Keep Love Waiting”, a romance caught at its make-or-break point. Among the calls for motion, there’s stillness, too. Where uncertain ambition once grew, gratitude now blooms on “We Made It” and intimacy feels bubble-wrapped from time on “Last Forever”. Elsewhere, the devotion in “Mine to Hold” isn’t for keeping, but for letting go. Time’s impermanence is ultimately accepted on the title track, whose final lyric distils the record’s philosophy: “You blink and then it’s gone.”