Running With Scissors

Long the poster child for sadboi bedroom pop, English singer-songwriter Robin Skinner is in a much more mischievous mood on <i>Running with Scissors</i>, his sixth full-length album as Cavetown. Those who still think of Skinner as a ukulele-sporting teen troubadour will be in for a shock once they hear “Rainbow Gal”, where his tender melody is subjected to all manner of hyperpop shock therapy, with 8-bit synths and pitch-shifting effects pushing the song into digital-emo overdrive. And equally adrenalised highlights like “Reaper” and “Sailboat” seem to change shape on a verse-by-verse basis as if Skinner were whipping through different levels of a video game, demonstrating how percolating electronics and machine-processed pop-punk riffs complement his crestfallen voice as perfectly as the acoustic-guitar therapy sessions of old.