Luxury Problems

The vocal loops that open “Numb” mark a break with Luxury Problems’ immediate predecessors, piercing those records’ omnipresent gloom like a shaft of sunlight. The tempo of Stott’s slow-motion techno still crawls agonisingly forward, and the metallic timbres of “Expecting” and “Up the Box” are tarnished and battered. But the airy vocal harmonies on “Hatch the Plan” balance the heaviness with a newfound lightness of spirit, while the almost a cappella ambience of the closing “Leaving” anticipates the meditative mood of 2014’s Faith in Strangers.