Additional Details ------------------------------ Product description: The long-awaited new album from CYMBALS is named after a book by Princeton academic, Daniel T. Rodgers, which addresses the fragmentation of ideas towards the end of the last century and how collective meanings have become uncertain. Singer and guitarist Jack Cleverly writes: "It hit me that I often feel paralysed by the feeling that everything is 'too complicated', and that many people I know feel that paralysis. I realised that this way of thinking can be traced through these songs." Produced by Dreamtrak (Swim Deep, Chad Valley, Hot Chip) in his Hackney studio and written collectively over the last 12-months, the group have taken their time to carefully piece the album together, song-by-song, in sequence. The album was completed following a final mix from Daniel Rejmer (Foals, Everything Everything) and the result is testament to the band s attention to detail: a cleaner, brighter sound than their brattier early recordings, edging towards the European sophistication of the end-of-the-century French house Jack grew up around. Singles 'Like An Animal', 'The End' and 'The Natural World' are characterized by an upbeat disco cool and all push the 7-minute mark, whereas Winter 98 , This City , and Call Me are brooding, stark synth-led numbers reminiscent of early-New Order, with some lyrics sung in Jack s native French. The literary inspiration runs further through the album. The track The 5% , more obviously making reference to the themes of the album's namesake, declares Time can be erased, you re stupid if you try and stay in place, over a pulsing bassline and swirling electronics. Like an Animal is inspired by the intellectual and moral confusion of the main character in Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain. The album has even garnered literary responses of its own by British poet and novelist Joe Dunthorne, author of Submarine Format: import