‘Live Life Living’, Example’s fifth album, is one that spends the majority of its running time looking back. Elliot Gleave’s latest collection of dancefloor imperatives mines his influences for inspiration, creating an air of mid-’90s Top Of The Pops amid more of the melodies that have made him a chart staple in his own right.
From the Baggy-indebted piano line on One More Day (Stay With Me) to the decidedly euro-pop synth bass of Seen You, it’s a loving nod to his past and the music that initially shaped the dance scene he helped to shove back into the limelight.
His first record for a major, ‘Live Life Living’ is also further proof of the man’s ability to execute pop-house numbers with unerring accuracy. Each synth line and drop is expertly curated, every song here tailor-made for deployment in the early hours.
Unfortunately, it’s also prone to cliche and unable to blend its hints of melancholy reflection with tunes cut from the Ibiza cloth. Kids Again is a prime example, with the yearning for a simpler time in Gleave’s voice swatted aside by a snare roll and ascending screech that heralds the latest thudding instrumental break.
Next Year, the album’s opener, is a close relative of ‘The Evolution Of Man’ and features the record’s best vocal performance, but its lyrics are maddeningly undercooked and reliant on convenient rhymes: “Never fear, the sunset’s near, bring us here and we’re happy ‘til next year.”
If we’re talking a hierarchy of needs, then ‘Live Life Living’ covers the dancefloor anthem section with ease. What it doesn’t do is consistently convey Gleave’s points beyond surface understanding. It’s fine, but it’s hard not to come to the conclusion that it was intended to be much more than that.
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