Still Night, Still Light

Purveyors of electro-pop lite and French-chic bangs, New York’s Au Revoir Simone have made progressively mature and engaging music, and on their third full-length release a slightly darker shade of melancholy prevails (fan David Lynch calls it “a joyous melancholy”). Not that they’re suppressing happy songs in favor of downbeat dirges, but their sweet, stark vocals and arrangements seem colored with a faint hue of sadness, or perhaps a more sage knowing, and it gives their music real legs. “All or Nothing” sputters to life with a Young Marble Giants drum machine track, leading to gliding synth lines and sibilant shakers, a lonely and resigned dance rhythm hanging in the background. Should we dance, or sway in a mopey trance? Can we do a little of both? The collection moves with acrobatic grace, as when the enticing “Trace a Line” gurgles along on two thin strands of synth notes before blossoming into the bubbling carnival that is “Only You Can Make You Happy;” and when the sweetly somber “Take Me as I Am” segues into the post-punk jitters of “Anywhere You Looked.”