Grum’s debut album Heartbeats is full of dancefloor-friendly tracks that are almost guaranteed to lift your spirits within the first few bars. With an overload of fat synths, rubbery synth basslines, and altered vocals, the first thing you might think is Daft Punk, and that’s not far off. Grum (known around the house as Graeme Shepherd) share the same kind of influences as Daft and their French house contemporaries (disco, Giorgio Moroder, synth pop, ’80s funk), and go about constructing their songs in a similarly uplifting, often thrilling, fashion. The album too is extremely well-constructed with an eye toward making it the kind of record that works as party fodder and as something that stands up to repeated listens. So while there are long stretches of the album that play like the moments during a DJ set that dial the crowd up to “bananas” mode (i.e. the triple shot of adrenalin “Power,” “Cybernetic,” and “Heartbeats”), there are also some slower tracks that have more of an R&B feel (“Want U,” the sticky sweet “Turn It Up”), a moody late-night ballad (“L.A. Lights”), a lush synth pop tearjerker (“Someday We’ll Be Together”), and a brilliant pop song that sounds like it would have been a huge radio hit back in 1986 (“Can’t Shake This Feeling”). Grum’s ear for a melody coupled with a light touch at the mixing board leads to an album you can enjoy over headphones just as much as you would pumping over speakers at a club. Heartbeats may not quite put Grum in Daft Punk’s league, but they sure aren’t far behind. – Tim Sendra