MUNA – Dancing on the Wall
MUNA's Dancing on the Wall sees the band swap the sun-soaked confessional catharsis of their last record for something altogether more edgy and tightly wound
Dancing on the Wall is MUNA’s fourth album and the first entirely produced by the group’s Naomi McPherson. It sees the band swap the sun-soaked confessional catharsis of their last record for something altogether more edgy and tightly wound.
Opener It Gets So Hot introduces a version of Los Angeles far removed from the usual beachy driving fantasy committed to song. Here, LA is a suffocating concrete maze where the houses don’t have AC. Its pulsing dance beat feels almost panicked, like someone trying to outrun something. Eastside Girls is the best bridge between the group’s previous work and what’s happening now. It also features the album’s literal best bridge – a We Didn’t Start the Fire-style stream of references for a queer millennial audience ('Nashville. London. Negroni with the nice gin. Austin. Paris. Fuck, she’s non-monogamous').
Elsewhere on the album, So What is a delightful addition to the 'I’m doing great, actually' canon, where barely concealed heartbreak begs to be felt under swaggering lyrics and Big Stick is a snarling powerhouse, a bleak look at consumerism which escalates into a refreshingly blunt indictment of American excess and political hypocrisy ('America gives more than America takes / We give weapons to dictators in apartheid states').
Listen to: Eastside Girls, So What, Big Stick