Gossip 'Real Power' (ALBUM REVIEW)

It’s great to see Gossip back where they belong, stage front, fanatical audience wrapped around vocalist Beth Ditto’s little finger. Wowing a clearly delighted throng at the recent 6 music festival it’s as if they’d never been away, not forgetting a barnstorming groove-laden new single ‘Real Power’ and now a brand new long player boasting the same moniker. The trio’s sixth album, released on Columbia records, their first new record in a dozen years serves as a fitting marker to the American trio’s twenty-five years together. 

With Rick Rubin once more at the controls in the studio, what started as a Ditto solo affair suddenly morphed into a full band project after their brief 2019 reunion tour, celebrating a decade since the Def Jam founder’s previous production session for Gossip on their breakthrough release ‘Music For Men’. Crafted on either side of the pandemic ‘Real Power’ serves as the band’s celebration of triumph over adversity both individually and collectively.

 

Full of the trademark Gossip power-pop sound, the polished finish on ‘Real Power’ stands in stark contrast to their Cramps-y shtik. Title track is pure Gossip at their badass best, the uber-groove laded summer festival anthem to end all summer festival anthems. Saying that, they’re certainly not one trick ponies, the standout ‘Don’t Be Afraid’ gives the Ditto vocal free reign, a blend of contemporary kitsch disco-ball mixed with Hitzville-era yearning; the denouement betraying a touching vulnerability, Ditto imploring “Hold me, like you never ever had to hold someone, like you can’t ever let go and so, don’t let go, don’t let go”. 

          

The Rubin influence is clearest on ‘Edge Of The Sun’ brimming with Chilli Pepper overtones yet the song proves infuriatingly catchy, the expansive yet lo-fi closers ‘Tough’ and ‘Peace and Quiet’ providing more of the album’s more rewarding moments.   

 

Words by Michael Price

Gossip official

'Real Power' is out now via Columbia Records