Carly Rae Jepsen – ‘Day And Night’ review: a blissful album of two halves from the queen of nuanced pop

‘Day And Night’ is, quite literally, an album of two halves.

Carly Rae Jepsen has always been a prolific songwriter, but this time around, a full 15 years after her global breakthrough with ‘Call Me Maybe’, she’s finally surrendered to the “indulgence” of making a double album.

Its 24 tracks (plus two more on the Japanese edition) are split evenly between a ‘Day’ side and a ‘Night’ side.

What this idea lacks in originality – British Pop Idol singer Gareth Gates did the same thing on his 2003 LP ‘Go Your Own Way’ – it makes up for in conceptual clarity.

Essentially, the first disc is for vibes, while the second has the bops.

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She’s the queen of catchy but nuanced pop, whose best songs (2017’s ‘Cut To The Feeling’, 2019’s ‘Want You In My Room’) feel like huge hits even if their actual chart success was modest.

The ‘Day’ side of this album, which Jepsen recently described to NME as “more organic in nature, with more live instruments and a little hint of my roots in folk”, features her most alt-leaning pop music yet.

She tries psychedelic drivetime rock on ‘Burning Heart’, throws in some campfire balladry on ‘Wild Child’ and dips into whimsical bossa nova on ‘Just A Little Walk On The Moon’.

At its best, the ‘Day’ disc sounds like the blissful memory of a summer holiday where you fell in love, which in effect it is: Jepsen wrote many of these songs after touring Europe with her now-husband, musician-producer Cole M.G.N., who worked on many of these songs.

But at other points, particularly on the dreamy midtempo ‘Good Fine Alright’, it descends into cute mood music.

Perhaps inevitably given Jepsen’s past form, the uptempo ‘Night’ side is more dynamic and often quite fabulous.

She channels ABBA on the melodically brilliant ‘Don’t Leave Me On The Dancefloor’, celebrates her biological and chosen families on the house-flavoured ‘Motivation’, and evokes British pop sophisticates Everything But The Girl on the elegantly melancholy ‘Near Or Far’.

Equally sleek is the sun-dappled disco of ‘Amalfi Coast’, which sounds a little like Kylie Minogue on an edible.