The Future Will Come

The Future Will Come is the kind of album you could listen to loudly in a club, or at home with some headphones and it would suit either. Welcome back intelligent dance music, we've missed you.

It’s Dionysian disco: dynamic, decadent and utterly brilliant.

A cosmic, contemporary Human League.

Some of the 80s references take a few listens until they stop sounding goofy, and MacLean’s deadpan vocals occasionally grate next to Whang’s light and floating tone, but once your ears adjust, there’s a lot to appreciate.

Maclean is clearly a scholar of electro/disco and each number is exquisitely arranged and executed, every synth sound modulates just so as it fades, every reference point lovingly rendered and the whole thing is buffed with a contemporary polish that eschews none of the off-kilter humanity that keeps disco delightfully distinct from its explicitly mechanised dancefloor cousins.

The frequent presence of full-time collaborator Nancy Whang's voice on many of the songs adds an extra element of melody that largely sees the record's intention true to the end.

The Future Will Come's title seems presciently loaded, its content primed for a mainstream meet'n'greet. [May 2009, p.108]

The Future Will Come is still a mostly solid as just about any full-length release on DFA, and if some of the best ideas die too soon or don’t go far enough, at least they appear at all.

Every track on The Future Will Come that hasn't already appeared as a single last year is a relatively short and succinct piece of work; think a bunch of radio edits instead of the 12" mixes. The good news is that brevity keeps some of these tracks from getting stretched thin.

While MacLean isn’t a self-conscious wit, he’s never seemed too invested in trying to not sound silly, and it doesn’t cost him. Sometimes, when the darkness gets heavy, his limitations add a much-appreciated levity. As Brody Stevens might say, “Enjoy it.”

Add the pipes of Nancy Whang on most tracks--giving Future a boy-girl dynamic--and there's a distinct suggestion that the Juan MacLean might just become the Human League after all.

Mr. MacLean’s attempt at naked vulnerability, on a ballad called 'Human Disaster,' may be this album’s biggest misstep. But at least that song dissolves right into a near-perfect closer, 'Happy House,' which was released as a single last year.

The Future Will Come blooms incrementally, driven from the ground by the grittiest keyboard performance heard on a dance album in some time.

Nothing on this album quite lives up to the previous "Give Me Every Little Thing," but in the end, Maclean does make the case that he should continue hanging around the mixer for many years to come. [Winter 2009, p.100]

After missing the mark with his robotic, soulless 2005 debut, Juan comes to life on this follow–up, giving us stretched–out, club–wrecking grooves.

For much of The Future Will Come, however, Maclean frustratingly boxes himself into the synth-pop format of the Human League.

Taken as a whole, the album does have a certain cohesiveness that’s lacking in most dance “albums” but many of the tracks fail to break new or interesting ground, and it leaves one wishing their potential of last summer could’ve been realized.

Tracks such as the arresting Human League-meets-Georgio-Moroder fusion 'One Day' and the gloriously uninhibited finale 'Happy House' remian an irresistible invitation onto the dancefloor. [May 2009, p.113]

Neither MacLean nor vocal foil Nancy Whang has a strong enough voice for pop. Instead it's the surging 10-minute disco epics 'Tonight' and 'Happy House; that impress. [May 2009, p.89]

This is just the album to inspire you to turn your bedroom into a disco. [Spring 2009, p.79]