CD of The Week

Robert DeLong made his name as a truly unique solo artist, not only playing keyboards, samplers and a drum kit onstage, but making music using hacked video game controllers. Combining EDM with a singer-songwriter vibe (in part because he just goes by his real name), DeLong is far more than just a button pusher.

His single “Global Concepts” put him on the map (check out the live Y-Not Session version he recorded for us, one of his first live radio performances ever), but last year’s “Long Way Down” was a genuine radio hit. The tune appears again on his new sophomore effortIn The Cards.

The album kicks off with the title track, using tarot card imagery as the first reference to the phrase “in the cards.” In a neat songwriting trick you rarely see these days, DeLong revisits that term multiple times throughout a few different songs, giving the album more of a thematic thread. “Jealousy” takes a very modern, radio-friendly Pop melody, then twists and turns it around through a sonic funhouse mirror. Lead single “Don’t Wait Up” is built on a huge hook of a chorus and DeLong’s “restless mind.” My favorite song on the album might be “Sellin’ U Somethin’,” a squiggly, high pitched, big beat track with shades of Passion Pit meets Prince. Lyrically it’s a sly take on consumerism in all forms, including buying and selling music itself. He also shows he can slow things down with the ‘80s-inspired duet with MNDR and the closing cut “That’s What We Call Love.”

In The Cardsis a great next step for DeLong, moving more towards his songwriting capabilities and further back from any stereotypical electronic bangers. If he can keep away from his occasional tendency to overproduce his voice to sound like Adam Levine (which unfortunately happens a few times on this album), he’s certainly on the long way up.