Jungle ‘Sunshine’
FIRST LISTEN: JUNGLE BASK IN SOULFUL, SUN-DRENCHED GROOVES ON ‘Sunshine’
After turning their blend of soul, funk and electronic pop into a global phenomenon with 2023’s Volcano, Jungle return with their fifth studio album, Sunshine, released August 14 via Caiola Records/AWAL. Josh Lloyd-Watson and Tom McFarland are joined more prominently this time by longtime collaborator Lydia Kitto, whose vocals, songwriting and production give the record some of its loosest and most emotionally open moments.
Across 11 tracks, Sunshine feels lighter on its feet than Volcano. The grooves are still immaculate and almost suspiciously easy to fall into, but some of the harder edges have been sanded down. Disco, funk, soul and house are all still here, though Brazilian rhythms, jazzier arrangements and flashes of acoustic guitar make this record feel warmer and a little less locked to the dance floor.
“Come Back to Me” opens in familiar Jungle territory, riding elastic bass, clipped guitar and stacked vocals before the title track slips into something softer and more spacious. “Move Like You Do” is the band operating almost on instinct at this point: a tight groove, a hook that barely seems to announce itself, and then suddenly it’s stuck in your head.
The album gets more interesting when that control loosens.
“Carry On” slows things down around acoustic guitar and jazzier chords, with Kitto taking the lead vocal and pulling Jungle somewhere more exposed. “Someday, Somewhere” does something similar in a different way, carrying real melancholy without ever becoming heavy. That push and pull keeps turning up across Sunshine. Even at its brightest, there’s usually something a little sad lingering underneath.
“The Wave” is probably the album’s easiest high point. Drawing from Brazilian music of the 1960s and ’70s, it moves with a breeziness that could easily feel calculated, but doesn’t. The groove just lands. Bas fits neatly into the haze of “Romeo II,” while “Reflection” drifts toward the dreamier end of Jungle’s sound without losing the pulse underneath it.
Very little on Sunshine catches you completely off guard. The production is pristine, the grooves hit where they’re supposed to and almost every transition feels effortless. After Volcano and the enormous success of “Back on 74,” it would have been easy to chase another version of that moment. They don’t. But they also don’t push especially hard against the sound they’ve spent the last decade perfecting.
There’s something satisfying about hearing a band this comfortable in its own language, especially when the songs are this concise. Sunshine rarely strains for a big statement. It moves, shifts mood, gives Kitto more room and gets out before any of its ideas start wearing thin.
Closer “Heavy on My Soul” strips away some of the polish and leaves the album somewhere quieter. It’s one of the few moments where you can hear the possibility of Jungle pulling further away from the immaculate groove that has come to define them.
At just over half an hour, Sunshine is easy to underestimate because it goes down so smoothly. It isn’t Jungle tearing up the blueprint. If anything, it shows how completely they understand it. The question now is how much longer they’ll be satisfied staying inside it.
Standout tracks: “The Wave,” “Carry On,” “Move Like You Do,” “Someday, Somewhere”
Sunshine is available now via Caiola Records / AWAL Recordings.
