Icona Pop - This Is… Icona Pop

By rights, ‘This Is… Icona Pop’ should be a triumph. A home run hit right out of the park, a shot rocketed into an open goal. With a Number One single behind them, high expectations and a couple of years turning out the best pop on the planet, the throne should be Caroline and Aino’s for the taking. And yet it isn’t.

As an album, ‘This Is…’ just isn’t. The hits, ‘I Love It’ and ‘Ready For The Weekend’, remain as effectively brilliant as ever, but - as with their Sweden-only release last year - there’s something missing. Icona Pop are best when they’re being less than blindingly obvious in the most direct way possible. They’re a duo capable of being unique, absent and independent. Yet here there are moments where it seems like the songs, if not the band, are simply going through the motions. When they hook it up - on the ear worm ‘On A Roll’ or brilliantly off-centre closer ‘Then We Kiss’, their attitude shines through. When they don’t, we’re left pining for the conspicuously absent ‘Manners’.

‘This Is…’ isn’t a bad album. It isn’t even an average one. Far from it - it’s more than good, but it could have been great.