★★★★★
On their second studio record Animal Nature, Escort's leaders Dan Balis and Eugene Cho continue the Studio 54-esque party that began with their 2011 self-titled debut. Back in the early 2000s, Balis and Cho met at Vassar College and began making house singles as a duo. Years later, they added vocalist Adeline Michèle, and a 17-piece live band to the mix at their shows. Animal Nature isn't a huge departure from their debut; the production is cleaner, and there's a bit less funk in the mix...
- pitchfork.com
2015-11-13
★★★★★
he seeds of a glorious party soundtrack are contained in the second album by New York's disco troupe . They have a fine live reputation and the brassy abandon of closer , recorded during a recent show, conveys the sweaty joy of encountering their 15-piece orchestra in person. Inevitably, some of the studio tracks suffer by comparison; you can imagine as an irresistible call to arms in a Brooklyn basement, but it falls a little flat here...
- www.theguardian.com
2015-11-01
★★★★★
This large New York band's second full-length is another impressive set of slinky house and disco grooves with bright synths, funky guitars, occasional strings and horns, propulsive rhythms and Adeline Michele's warm, confident vocals. 10/30/2015
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- kexp.org
2015-11-07
★★★★★
scort were spawned when Eugene Cho and Dan Balis met at an electronic music class in Poughkeepsie, New York. They began making house singles, gradually adding musicians and evolving into a 15-piece orchestral behemoth. , Escort's second album, has all the trappings of dance classics of the last 30-odd years: If You Say So has a repetitive rhythm, lyrics about "letting go" and a squelchy bassline worthy of Daft Punk; Cabaret has a Giorgio Moroder-esque pulsating synth, Earth, Wind & Fire horn...
- www.theguardian.com
2015-10-30
★★★★★
Though "big band disco from Brooklyn" may not be a tag that inspires musical enthusiasm among non-New Yorkers, it's hard not to enjoy Escort. This self-titled album has been a long time coming, with singles having preceded its release for nearly five years ? even now it sees its first release in Canada after having been available stateside for nine months. At heart, Escort contain a timeless pop groove and strong songwriting ? never just one riff beaten to death with wah wah guitars...
- exclaim.ca
2012-07-09
★★★★★
Escort is thoroughly devoted to disco. Its self-titled, self-released debut album (new to CD, but digitally released last November) struts through disco's many subgenres and lifestyle accoutrements. You can have a ball just picking out the blatant influences: "Caméleon Chameleon" sounds uncannily like Michael Jackson's "Don't Stop 'Til You Get Enough", for instance, while "A Sailboat In the Moonlight" goes all Dr...
- www.popmatters.com
2012-02-09
★★★★★
The Brooklyn-based disco band Escort released the lush throwback "Starlight" online in 2006, and gained some viral recognition thanks to the Muppet-laden recut of its hyperkinetic 2007 follow-up "All Through The Night...
- www.avclub.com
2012-02-02
★★★★★
These New York disco-funk revisionists start their self-titled debut album by calling themselves, in more than one language, phonies. "Im the great imposter / I give you what you want," boasts vocalist and lead diva Adeline Michèle on opener and recent single "Caméleon Chameleon," laying this groups acts of exquisite deception and instant gratification bare...
- www.spin.com
2012-02-02
★★★★★
The studio must be an oasis for Dan Balis and Eugene Cho, the leaders of Escort, New York's premier live disco ensemble. Do you have any idea how hard it is to play this stuff in a club without coming off like rank amateurs or soulless professionals? You have to be tighter-than-tight to replicate those metronomic rhythms, while also being loose enough to play through any in-the-moment human glitches...
- pitchfork.com
2012-01-12
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