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ESSENTIAL NEW MUSIC RECORD REVIEWS

Essential New Music: Major Lazer’s “Peace Is The Mission”

MajorLazer

With the promise of several new Major Lazer albums immediately following this, Peace Is The Mission is an opening salvo of sorts: DJ/producer Diplo, Walshy Fire and Jillionaire’s seductive, weird soul take on multicultural trap muzik circa 2015. Or, it could all just be a commercial for the Major’s FX Network cartoon series with Aziz Ansari. It’s hard to tell.

Either way, Diplo makes it so that his crew fits comfortably within the framework of a delectable Bollywood wind that glides as easily as a trombone (“Lean On”), a jittery house-music ballad with Mariah Carey manqué Ariana Grande (“All My Love”) and Caribbean spiced-nut hip hop with added salt (“Night Riders” with 2 Chainz, Pusha T and Mad Cobra). The best cuts here (“Too Original” and “Light It Up”) happen to be those hewing closer to Major Lazer’s wake-and-bake dancehall origins. Then again, whatever stays as it once was on Diplo’s dance floor?

—A.D. Amorosi