Calvin Harris: Motion review – bombast as usual

These days, Calvin Harris is not so much artist as record-smashing machine. He’s the highest-paid DJ in the world, the first musician to score nine Top 10 singles from one album (the 2012 LP 18 Months) and the only EDM act to feature in Heat magazine’s 101 Hottest Hunks poll. Consequently, his fourth album – which has already generated three No 1 singles, including the soulful, undeniable Blame – feels like a gleaming EDM monolith, piloted by an expressionless Mr Big. On Summer, the one track he sings himself, the curtains part to reveal the geek in the machine, his diffident drawl indicating an artist who may feel contricted by the EDM sound he was instrumental in creating. Elsewhere, Harris doesn’t fix what is clearly not broken. Though there are occasional surprises, such as the skittering steel-drum effect on Dollar Signs (drowsily sung by star-in-waiting Tinashe) and a striking collaboration with the group Haim, who emanate glorious loss and regret, the bulk of the record is bombast as usual. The big pop hooks and breakdowns are here, but there is little sense of Harris’s personality.