Hairless Toys

Róisín Murphy’s third solo album was released in 2015 and contained, perhaps unsurprisingly, many musical surprises. She packed in an impressive array of styles and genres, confidently hovering around the edges of disco, boogie, house, synth pop and electronica, cross-pollinating, mixing and matching club-music tropes into unique vehicles for her clever, intimate and alluring songs. 

The results here are as impressive and varied as ever, ranging from the bleepy electro-pop with glockenspiel plonks of “Gone Fishing,” to “Evil Eyes,” where airy chrome-edged ’80s synths, snappy drum machine snares and Nile Rodgers-style guitars unite behind a soaring vocal melody. The title track is a rapturous, beatless ballad backed by angelic synth swells and celestial choirs that builds up into another of Murphy’s majestic, epic, sweeping peak-romantic musical moments that she does so well. “Exile” is another contrast, an intimate torch song decorated with dusty twangy vibrato guitar chords. Range, style, boldness and beauty, it’s all here.