Poolside - Blame It All On Love (LP) - Yellow Vinyl

Poolside has always chased that perfect late‑arvo glow, and Blame It All On Love hits it with an easy confidence. Released on 20 October 2023 through Counter Records, the album finds Jeffrey Paradise refining the “daytime disco” he helped coin, leaning into live instrumentation, sun‑bleached melodies and a tempo that feels made for long drives and unhurried balcony catch‑ups. It’s the fourth proper Poolside album and it carries the gentle assurance of someone who’s spent a decade getting the salt and citrus balance right.

Where Pacific Standard Time and Heat played like postcards from a dream holiday and Low Season settled into a softer, headphone‑friendly drift, Blame It All On Love brings the band feel back to the front. You can hear the hands on the strings and the wood of the percussion. Bass lines stroll rather than strut, rhythm guitars flicker like sunlight through gum leaves, and the synths are warm enough to make your shoulders drop a notch. Paradise has always had a curator’s ear, and he surrounds himself with the right voices. “Each Night” with Mazy is the one I keep replaying, a nocturnal cruiser that still breathes like early morning. It’s a classic Poolside trick, that feeling of dancing without breaking a sweat.

There’s a similar buoyancy to “Ride With You,” which benefits from the melodic instincts of Ben Browning from Cut Copy. The song eases forward on a lithe bass figure and a vocal that keeps the melody close to the chest, never over‑sung, always inviting. This is the Poolside mode that wins over people who reckon they don’t dance. The groove is patient, the pay‑off is subtle, and then you realise your foot’s been keeping time for three minutes straight.

What really lands here is the sense of craft. Paradise isn’t chasing a trend or sprinting for the next drop. He’s layering congas under tight hi‑hats, tucking soft‑focus keys beside picked guitar, and letting the arrangements breathe. That space is everything. When the choruses arrive, they feel earned rather than engineered. The album’s title sets a tone too. There’s romance in these mixes, not just lyrically but in the sound of people in a room playing for feel. It’s the same charm that made their 2020 cut “Can’t Stop Your Lovin’” with Panama a fan favourite; collaboration as colour, not decoration.

If you’ve followed Poolside since the early days of their Neil Young “Harvest Moon” cover, you’ll hear a through‑line. Blame It All On Love is more polished than those first SoundCloud discoveries, but it shares that unhurried optimism. You can picture Paradise crossfading from Sade to Compass Point records to Larry Heard in his head and then building a gentle bridge between them. The sequencing helps. Songs amble into each other like friends arriving at a backyard table, and the mood holds even when the tempo nudges up. It’s easy to imagine these tunes stretching out live, with the percussion riding the breeze and the guitars taking an extra lap.

On a more practical note, this is an album made for the turntable. The low‑end is round and forgiving, the highs never brittle, and the stereo field feels like a hammock you can slide into. If you’re hunting Poolside vinyl, this one will earn rack space alongside Pacific Standard Time and Low Season. The artwork pops in a way that begs for a sleeve display, and the mixes bloom when you give them room to breathe. If you’re in the habit of trawling a Melbourne record store on a Saturday or you like to buy Poolside records online, keep an eye out for Blame It All On Love vinyl. It’s also a handy gateway if you’re introducing a mate to Poolside albums on vinyl for the first time. For those building a crate of feel‑good dancers, it sits neatly beside Compass Point‑era classics and modern balearic staples, and it won’t scare off house‑shy visitors to your listening corner. For anyone browsing vinyl records Australia‑wide and wondering if this will suit a sunset barbecue, the answer is yes.

Blame It All On Love doesn’t try to reinvent Poolside. It tightens the focus, warms the colours and trusts the groove. Sometimes that’s exactly what you want from a long‑running project. A record that makes a room feel lighter, invites a bit of movement and never pushes too hard. Blame it on love if you like. The feeling holds either way.