Calvin Harris Funk Wav Bounces Vol. 2 Review: A Colorful but Nebulous Playlist

The Scottish DJ’s latest album has a few superficial charms going for it—and not much else.

Calvin Harris, Funk Wav Bounces Vol. 2
Photo: Simon Thirlaway

Calvin Harris’s Funk Wav Bounces Vol. 2 certainly delivers on the convivial promise of its title, as the sonic palette that the Scottish DJ indulges in here is a bright and colorful concoction of dance-adjacent influences and instrumentation. For one, the vibrant guitar licks and electric synth lines of “New to You” imbue the track with a sense of lush elation, with a tight opening string section setting the romantic mood before any of the three guest vocalists show up. On the vivacious “Stay with Me,” Harris works what should be a standard post-disco song into something far groovier, with a steadfast, swaying rhythm that serves as a solid foundation for Halsey’s incredibly breathy chorus.

But the album’s cohesive nature doesn’t make for a consistent listening experience on a qualitative level. Like Harris’s previous set of bounces from 2017, this is a decidedly mixed bag of varying vocal performances and shoddy songwriting, its overall success resting on its guests’ innate abilities to sound like they’re having a blast together. More often than not, Vol. 2’s songs are content to merely conjure a carefree atmosphere. And, as if to make those intentions plain, Snoop Dogg, the patron saint of phoned-in nonchalance, shows up for an unenthused, almost obligatory appearance on the impossibly laidback “Live My Best Life.”

Vol. 2’s tracklist functions as the album equivalent of an inoffensive, easily digestible playlist of summer-friendly anthems—which should ultimately be the end goal for a project of this personality and limited ambition, but the songs themselves should also, at the bare minimum, be filled with a sense of ebullience, or at least provide the sensation of something fresh. Outside of a few standouts—like “Obsessed,” where breakout dancehall sensation Shenseea’s deft wordplay and bouncy timbre strike a nice contrast with Charlie Puth’s gravely tenor—there’s zero discernable identity to the album on a track-by-track basis.

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21 Savage supplies an uninspired, lethargic verse on “New Money,” where the novelty of hearing him rap over such glittering piano keys fades quickly. Busta Rhymes fares a little better on “Ready or Not,” but the only notable part about the humdrum track is the sheer energy of his breakneck delivery—and even that is a tad substandard by his usual standards. Elsewhere, Swae Lee’s sparkling falsetto perks up the melancholic “Lean on Me,” though the track also contains some rather dopey lyrics (“Only way to give up my one heart is if I had two”) and wraps up before it can ever really develop any of its compositional ideas.

While the rest of the songs on Vol. 2 are a tad busier in terms of musicianship, they often have one too many moving parts to truly achieve the breezy tone that Harris is clearly aiming for. “Woman of the Year” crams not one, not two, but three rather anonymous guest spots—Chlöe, Stefflon Don, and Coi Leray—into less than three-and-a-half minutes. And while Halsey’s aforementioned chorus on “Stay with Me” is a sticky little earworm, it’s done no favors by everything else going on around it, including an awkward segue into a completely unsexy Justin Timberlake verse and a squeaky pre-chorus from Pharrell Williams.

If that wasn’t enough, there’s even a “Part 2,” more an extended outro than a full-fledged sequel in which Timberlake riffs over the fading beat. It’s a fine idea in theory—after all, what’s a party without a nice cool-down?—but one that, thanks to the track’s non-committal execution, has been rendered into nothing more than sonic wallpaper.

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The worst offender in that regard is “Potion,” which awkwardly stumbles from an unflattering, reverb-soaked intro into a tacky, half-hearted pre-chorus featuring Dua Lipa that builds on the track’s central premise: that if you take “late night conversations,” add some “electric emotions,” then “[sprinkle] with a little bit of sex,” you get a “potion.” Though, if you alter this formula a smidge—change “conversations” to “bodies achin’” and replace “emotions” with “mental stimulation”—then it’s apparently “a moment,” which seems to be more or less the same thing (and doesn’t even create a slant rhyme with the first part of the chorus). Throw a barely audible Young Thug into the mix, and, much like the rest of Vol. 2, you get what’s a vibe in the most nebulous sense of the term—but not much in the way of staying power.

Score: 
 Label: Columbia  Release Date: August 5, 2022  Buy: Amazon

Paul Attard

Paul Attard is a New York-based lifeform who enjoys writing about experimental cinema, rap/pop music, games, and anything else that tickles their fancy. Their writing has also appeared in MUBI Notebook.

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