8/10

With their newest release 'Embrace The Grift', US art-rock innovators Opin step further into their own strange and alluring universe, one where dancefloor pulses meet meditative shadows, and the seams between improvisation and meticulous structure are deliberately blurred. It’s a record filled with sharp angles softened by overgrowth and neon corridors leading to quiet rooms you didn’t know you needed.

From the first track 'Pinches', Opin establish a magnetic push-and-pull. Synths flare and dissolve, percussion alternates between hypnotic repetition and unexpected pivots, and melodies slip just out of reach before resolving in sudden moments of clarity. The result is music that keeps you slightly off balance, forcing you to lean in and follow the twists. The initial single 'Hospital Street III' hinted at this approach, but in the context of the wider album, it becomes just one piece of a sprawling, intricate puzzle.

The production, handled by Jeff Zeigler and mastered to tape by Fred Kevorkian, captures a tactile warmth that tempers the record’s more jagged edges. There’s a sense of touch to these tracks, as if you can feel the grit of the drum machine pads or the brush of a finger across a synth key. This grounding quality keeps the record human, even in its most electronic moments.

But what makes 'Embrace The Grift' so compelling is its refusal to sit neatly in one space. Opin are comfortable letting a song live in tension between mechanical precision and organic drift. It’s an album that acknowledges the club and the bedroom, the head and the heart, and the past and the future.

By the time the closing notes fade, you’ve been guided through a constructed world with its own architecture, mood, and weather. In an era where electronic music can often feel either overly polished or purely nostalgic, 'Embrace The Grift' thrives in the liminal space, where unpredictability feels like the point.