Four albums later, despite feeling the need to collaborate with Elton John (and boy am I hanging out for their Elton John covers album), Nick Littlemore and Peter Mayes are still going strong. “The Truth” is the lead single and while it is not to my personal taste, after playing this album I noticed the other three people in my share house were singing along with the chorus while washing the dishes. “Better Way” starts promisingly enough with a minimalist Goyte meets early Depeche Mode then morphs into an infectious groove laden pop anthem. “Solid Ground” is a sad re-working of Kylie Minogue’s ‘On A Night Like This’ and degenerates into late 90’s commercial dance music, sadly in a way that is not ironic.
Littlemore was rumored to have broken up with his girlfriend while writing these songs, but appears way too narcissistic and self-absorbed to draw on this experience for inspiration in his songwriting in any meaningful way. To date, ‘Soft Universe’ has received mixed reviews, perhaps the quality of the project has been compromised by the band’s extra curricular activities with Empire of The Sun and Cirque du Soleil. If Pnau were naive early on when they failed to get permission to use samples on their first album, clearly the money made selling the rights of their music for use in the video game, Grand Turismo 5 has gone some way towards compensating them.
