It's hard to compliment something that knows it's good. It's obvious that a lot has gone into fabricating an album that covers all the bases and ticks all the boxes for turning a collection of ideas into a great album.

If you haven't heard it, the new album from Marshall Smith's Marshmellow project is just as the name implies. The music of Marshmellow is on a whole fluffy, soft, and yes, at times mellow. A dreamscape of soft swelling synth and melodic piano. Something for the cloud chasers (I don't mean vapers).   

I say on a whole, but there are no two songs alike on Love is Love. It feels like an album of singles, as opposed to a single album. But then this is what the hip world is looking for, evidenced by the decline in albums sales and the rise of the single.  

I thought from the first track, The Moment I Wake Up I was in for an hour of club-hopping gym music. You know the type. The soundtrack to an aerobics class. For some, music that gets the heart pumping and the mind psyched. For the alternative types, more incentive to get the workout over faster.

But then came Zeros & Ones, my favourite on the album and well deserving of a single release - if it hasn't been released to the general public already. Is this on the singles chart yet? It should be.

The effect this range of styles has is immediately apparent; increased listenability. A favourite Jon Lajoie sketch once lampooned a U2 fan, their comment being "I love how every song sounds the same" the joke being that this is generally the opposite of true.

Yes, there is some U2 influences here, but there is also Coldplay, Mumford & Sons, David Bowie, and David Gray. There's even some electro funk on the track Funny Thang. And that increased listenablity means getting to the end of an album without skipping tracks, which is ideal for Love is Love because the emotional depth of the music, tone and lyrics reveal themselves towards the end.      

The music as a whole is self described as Gay Electro Pop, a distinction I wasn't aware existed, once again showing how out of touch I am with this modern world.  

What makes a genre gay? The Creator, the content, the intended audience? I personally can only speak for the content.

Pop music lyricists generally gravitate towards descriptions of the indescribable and oft misunderstood collection of impulses and emotions we lump under the title "love". Marshmellow is no different; the fifteen tracks of Love is Love all have something to say about love.

Is the love described across Love is Love any more or less "gay" than the pop you've listened to over the past few decades? No. Love, being as multifaceted and misunderstood as it is, is a universal feeling, to be enjoyed or endured by all. Love is love.     

You can stream or download Marshmellow's Love is Love on iTunes or Spotify.  For the visual types, here is the clip for the lead single, The Moment I Wake Up, an artistic take on the lyric video, which are finally coming into vogue. 

• 1
  Head Like A Hole
• 2
  Horror Story
• 3
  Fraser Ross
• 4
  Fur Patrol
• 5
  Michelle Rounds
• 6
  L.A.B.
• 7
  The Feelers
• 8
  Devilskin
• 9
  Coridian
• 10
  Shihad

• 
  Death Without a Priest @ Meow, Wellington - 22/11/2024
• 
  Cherry Punch @ Meow, Wellington - 22/11/2024
• 
  Sea Mouse @ Meow, Wellington - 22/11/2024
• 
  Nadia Reid @ Loons, Lyttelton - 16/11/2024

• 1
  APT.
  ROSÉ And Bruno Mars
• 2
  DIE WITH A SMILE
  Lady Gaga And Bruno Mars
• 3
  BIRDS OF A FEATHER
  Billie Eilish
• 4
  TASTE
  Sabrina Carpenter
• 5
  I LOVE YOU, I'M SORRY
  Gracie Abrams
• 6
  ESPRESSO
  Sabrina Carpenter
• 7
  SAILOR SONG
  Gigi Perez
• 8
  LOSE CONTROL
  Teddy Swims
• 9
  A BAR SONG (TIPSY)
  Shaboozey
• 10
  GOOD LUCK, BABE!
  Chappell Roan

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