Django Django: Born Under Saturn review – wonder and dread on indie-electro band’s second album

If Django Django’s second album doesn’t quite have the same effect as their debut, that’s no reflection on its quality, just a recognition that such a distinctive sound – mixing surf guitars, spartan percussion, dance-music electronics and dynamics, and the vibrato-less harmonies of high psychedelia – isn’t such a surprise second time around. Still, Born Under Saturn shows no diminution in the songwriting: the single First Light is a startling, eerie, beautiful song that itches away at you, and might be the best thing they’ve yet done. Django Django sound like a musical representation of what filmmakers call “the magic hour”, when the light is suffused with gold, and lyric after lyric here refers to sun, sky or light: High Moon, Vibrations, Shake and Tremble, First Light and Giant all bring in that sense of wonder or dread at what hangs above. If there’s one criticism, it’s of its length – 54 minutes feels like 10 too many for an album whose impact is doubled when the songs punch their way into your attention.