Hairless Toys album cover
Hairless Toys

Róisín Murphy

2015
Play It Again Sam

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 synths 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.

Harold Heath

Recommended by
Who also suggested

If you select your preferred streamer here, we will save your preference and link to that platform if possible. This can always be changed in the Settings menu.

Apple Music

If you’d like to prioritize Bandcamp if available, tap the Bandcamp logo.

Since some albums are only available on one service, you’ll still see logos for other services if the album is only available on that service.

Next