LEISURE – Welcome to the Mood
Release date: September 12th 2025
Label: Nettwerk (CA)
Length: 34 minutes
7.5
What a Pleisure!
November 2025, the snow is falling outside. I decided to open this blog to share my thoughts and discoveries as a way to share with people and not be empty of musical ideas anymore.
During a break, I am looking for something to listen to and warm my last hour at work. I remember a good friend of mine yesterday telling me that the latest Leisure’s record is out now and did not give it a chance yet.
So here we are… but just a bit of background.
Leisure is a New Zealand electronic and indie music collective from the Auckland area founded in the mid 2010’s. The project was founded by already established artists from the island which gave them popularity very quickly and allowed a very multi-influenced sound signature with styles from soul, funk, R&B, pop and jazz.
Today, we’re diving into a review of their fifth and latest album, “Welcome To The Mood”, released on September 12th, 2025. For this record, the band embraces a more organic approach, favoring live recording and reducing the use of looped beats. Ready for groovy basslines and positive vibrations? Let’s get into it.
The opening track, which also gives the album its title, “Welcome to the Mood”, serves as a two-minute intro built around a simple, straightforward message: “welcome, let go, and chill with us.” Its laid-back instrumental rhythm immediately sets the tone for the journey ahead. From the very first notes, warmth and softness unfold through a repetitive yet irresistibly groovy bassline, enriched by a trumpet entry halfway through the track.
Next comes “Sundown”, a funkier cut that even flirts with disco thanks to its guitar-and-bass-driven intro. This love song, with its tender saxophone accents, is the perfect feel-good track—sweet and uplifting, but with just a touch of melancholy. Its harmonies effortlessly transport you to a late-summer afternoon, cruising through the golden hour.
The next two tracks are, for me, the weakest on the album. Both are love songs dedicated to a missing person. “Diamonds” is fairly simple—instrumentally and lyrically—focusing on the emotional distance between lovers: “Call you from another time zone, everything you are I call home.” It carries an ethereal quality that becomes even more pronounced in the following track, “Missing You”. Lyrically, it reflects on the unwavering support a loved one offers when navigating life’s challenges. With its minimalist drum pattern and soft backing vocals, Leisure delivers two effective and pleasant tracks, though they do lean toward the simplistic.
With “The Colour of the Sound”, the collective launches what is, in my opinion, a much stronger second half of the record. It’s hard to imagine a groovier bassline than the one anchoring this nearly five-minute track. The intro immediately reveals the band’s soul- and funk-influenced roots. An almost isolated bass riff drives the verses, while a subtle keyboard line adds depth every two bars. During the chorus, the combination of guitar, bass, and vocals introduces exotic tones, giving the song a slight Tom Misch vibe. The arrangement becomes increasingly layered as violins, keyboards, and trumpets join in, adding a welcome dose of complexity.
“Dominoes” picks up the pace and leans into a more pop-oriented sound, yet maintains the band’s signature keyboard and bass textures, keeping it cohesive with the rest of the album—and it works beautifully. To be honest, this is a style in which the band truly excels.
The band have shared on the song:
Each fall – like the dominoes – brings the two closer together, making the love feel both inevitable and endlessly new. It embraces the beauty of loving one person endlessly, where every day feels like falling for them all over again.
Another love-oriented song, “Beach House”, returns to the floating, laid-back mood established at the beginning of the album. The title speaks for itself: the track creates an immediate sense of relaxation, placing us on a poolside deck or gazing at the gentle back-and-forth of the waves, with a loved one in mind.
Leisure undeniably knows how to paint vivid images and stir emotional vulnerability. The following tracks, “Tenderness” and “Desert Moon Sky”, are once again odes to pure, intimate love. While both the lyrics and the song structures follow a more conventional format here, the result remains silky smooth and thoroughly enjoyable. Some listeners, however, may feel a tinge of disappointment with the sometimes uninspired, generic lyrics that create a “karaoke” effect over otherwise beautifully crafted productions. In my view, this is one of the album’s main drawbacks.
“One in a Million” closes the record. Its introduction, carried solely by keys, brings a classic love-song sensibility. Gradually, the groove builds through subtle musical additions—backing vocals, saxophone—before the bass finally enters. It’s a safe but effective way to end the album. When comparing the opener with this final track, a sense of resolution emerges. Whereas “Welcome to the Mood” speaks in the future tense and invites us to set aside everyday worries, “One in a Million” leans into reassurance, fate, and emotional closure: “You and I are one in a million […] I wanna believe that this light, deep down in my soul, will never die.”
The take away
There is much to love about this album. The production is crisp, clean, and remarkably powerful. Layers of keys and subtle arrangements elevate the soul- and occasionally funk-influenced tracks. This short LP is essentially a love letter to love itself. With its universally relatable message and broadly feel-good atmosphere, the album fully lives up to its title. Let’s not beat around the bush: this project succeeds in making us feel good, and it’s hard to resist tapping your foot—or nodding your head with that slight eyebrow-raise of approval. The record’s cohesion is also undeniable. Aside from “Dominoes”, which lightly pushes the boundaries, the tracklist remains smooth, homogeneous, and consistent.
But this strength is also a weakness. The slow tempos and similar moods make it difficult for individual tracks to truly stand out, and even after multiple listens, it can be challenging to clearly distinguish one song from another. As mentioned earlier, the lyrics can also be a point of criticism. They often feel generic and lack the spark of inspiration that could elevate the songs even further. While simplicity can suit a heartfelt declaration of love, it also limits how memorable and distinctive the tracks can be from a lyrical perspective.
Enjoy!
Standing out:
– Sundown
– The Colour of the Sound
– Dominoes
