Loadstar – Refuse To Love

Label: Ram RecordsScore: 7/10

With their long awaited debut album Future Perfect due later this year, Loadstar start the run up to its release with new single Refuse To Love.

Featuring Takura on vocal duties, Refuse To Love opens like a ballad. Crisp twinkling keys and adlibbed harmonies build to a mass of kicks and snares, dropping to a pulsating riff heavy dance floor smasher. Takura is on comfortable ground on a track like this and his vocals sit well on top of the beats. It’s raw enough for the clubs but with something to it that makes it perfect for daytime radio too.

Scaling things back and getting a little deeper, Flight greets you on the flipside. Chunky drums roll amid reversed piano melodies and reverb laden vocal snippets. The 80’s inspired chords and thick cut bass line are a stark contrast to the pummelling aural assault of its predecessor.  

For me, Loadstar have been a crew whose AA side tracks seem to marginally outshine their main side offerings, barring Berlin/Hit The Ground which was all out quality. Refuse To Love pushes no doubt pushes all the right buttons on the dance floor. Flight tempers that with a stripped back cut for the heads, which definitely grabbed my attention. Either way its good lead up to an album I’m very much looking forward to.