Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs – When The Lights Go

Ten years on from Trouble, Orlando Higginbottom is back with a slick sophisti-pop album which updates his sound in all the right ways

Though music is a communal endeavour, it’s hard to shake the feeling that Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs‘ Orlando Higginbottom was sorely overlooked for his role in the UK’s deep house revival – artists like Disclosure and Duke Dumont received much more acclaim with music that his debut Trouble easily eclipsed. Ten years since, he’s back with a slick sophisti-pop album which updates his sound in all the right ways.

Though there are a few uptempo numbers, When The Lights Go’s relatively mellow style brings Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs closer to contemporaries like Caribou or Bullion, especially on the heartfelt build-ups of Forever (“Slow down, put your head in my hands / concentrate on hearing what I’m trying to say / ‘cause all I see is time for you and me / and once again I feel like I’m loving you”) and Blue Is The Colour’s more eccentric bossa nova stylings.

Never Seen You Dance wins the prize for best pop song, as a syncopated bassline and shuffling groove rub up against coy come-ons and joyous piano chords, while Friend brings immaculate slow jam vibes for lyrics about an unpredictable relationship, far from the only use of ’80s-sounding production on here. Sound & Rhythm is the most straightforward house track, featuring Deep Dish-esque stabs and a woozy breakdown, but it’s clear that these days Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs mostly intends his productions to accompany the song-writing.

The album’s interludes are well-judged additions, with Basement’s sustained pads and Silence’s explosions of static cleansing the palette nicely, and though When The Lights Go is a fairly long record the quality doesn’t let up in the slightest. By the time Thugs’ pensive mid-tempo beat is drowned in effects, it’s clear that Totally Enormous Extinct Dinosaurs’ return is as triumphant as Higginbottom could have hoped for after all these years.