In addition, the album features collaborations with several singer-songwriters, including Kelis, Channel Tres, Aminé, Slowthai, Mick Jenkins, Fatoumata Diawara, Blick Bassy, Kehlani, Syd, and Common.
After experiencing delays, Energy was ultimately released in the summer of 2020 due to its "positive messages" that Disclosure hoped would resonate with people during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The deluxe edition album tracklist includes nine additional songs: Disclosure's five-song Ecstasy EP (originally released 28 February 2020), Khalid collaborations "Talk" and "Know Your Worth", and 2 remixes of sixth single "Birthday".
Energy showcases "a diasporic sound that foregrounds the origins of a plethora of musical genres",[16] and "encouraged [Disclosure] to follow their instincts and embrace the melodies, choruses and beats that arrived the fastest.
"[12] Thomas Smith of NME said "On Energy, they dip in and out of their own past, fusing together more primal moments with big names collabs – it's an eye-bugging, mind-boggling listen.
[15] Disclosure also reunited with Eric Thomas for this project, previously featured on "When a Fire Starts to Burn" from their first studio album Settle (2013).
With "singers rooted in African pop traditions", John Freeman of Rolling Stone called the album "one of the more exciting developments this time around.
"[5] Madison Vain of Esquire called Energy "a percussive, hip-hop-inflected embrace of global music" and said it "might be the biggest dance album of 2020.
As Slant Magazine writer Charles Lyons-Burt observed, "Collaborating with a guest list composed entirely of artists of color—most of them Black, two from Cameroon and Mali—and pulling from the long stylistic history of hip-hop, R&B, and Western African pop-rock, brothers Guy and Howard Lawrence apply their distinct brand of house music to these myriad styles, syncing everything up into a combustible, richly layered party record.
[7] The "bubbling, playful and upbeat" opener "Watch Your Step" is "a charismatic breakbeat romp" that "morphs" into syndrum-assisted disco-house with "a thin layer of crispy distortion".
[5][12][15][18][16] "My High", featuring Aminé and Slowthai, is a "skittish" and "impressively relentless" samba-hip house song "intended to chivvy the dancefloor along into delirium", with a jagged bassline that warps into acid squiggles.
[5][9] Disclosure wanted to work with Mick Jenkins because of his rapping on the track "Jazz", but he surprised the brothers with "a beautiful falsetto singing voice."
[20] The groovey, electro-funk "C'est ne pas", featuring Cameroonian singer Blick Bassy's "silky" and "majestic" vocals", is minimal with bass, beats, effects, and scat singing.
[5][7][8][15][21] It was originally conceived as an 8-minute[6] studio jam, but Bassy used parts of several local dialects (including French) from his home nation in the vocal take, borrowing elements of each.
[9] The woozy "Thinking 'Bout You" "takes a razor" to a piece of early '70s Canadian blue-eyed soul (Lady's 1976 single “You're Still the One"), with "beautiful" string instruments giving it a "heavenly" touch.
[5][9][17][22] "Reverie" is a "palate-cleansing" callback to "'90s Chicago" and features Common, who "spouts his philosophy of positivity" backed by a dreamy, new-age funk jam of bongos and watery droplets of synth.
[12] Disclosure commented that in creating "Birthday", they wrote the song with Syd and were aiming for a "Brandy, Monica, and Aaliyah vibe; that was just how we were all feeling that day".
[15] In "Reverie", Common delivers "a wholesome and uplifting" verse about self-improvement: "Slipped into a reverie/I can see a better me/Things that heavenly like love and melody/To the heights of angels that dwell in me.
[5][7][9][12][15][16][17][19][21] Slant Magazine described Energy's cover art as depicting Disclosure's "signature masked silhouette embedded in a unified landmass that's beginning to break apart.
"[27] The metaverse features mountains, rolling streams, deep caves, and forests sprawled across seven climates, intended to reflect the musical diversity of the record.
[30] Critics complimented Disclosure's genre diversity, collaborations, and the more upbeat songs—others criticised the lyrics and said the album gradually loses steam.
[9] Thomas Smith of NME writes "After a decade in the game, the Lawrence brothers open up on weathering the storm, shrugging off detractors and unveiling their clubtastic new album Energy—a triumphant return to form.
There are no wasted beats or over-wrought jams – just scintillating house anthems with an array of special guest vocalists, including big names such as Kelis, Kehlani and Common, as well as the zeitgeisty likes of punk scallywag slowthai and Cali producer Channel Tres.
It's a record that will eventually soundtrack festival main stages, but the pared-back approach doubles-up as a love letter to the smaller venues on the circuit.
"[7] In positive reviews, Jon Freeman of Rolling Stone commented that "Disclosure still have a keen understanding of the dancefloor's ebbs and flows,[5] while Jenessa Williams of DIY called Energy "what they do best, and it's what we want more of - motivational, sky-reaching anthems that don't overthink the euphoria at hand.
[8] Charles Lyons-Burt of Slant Magazine wrote, "Energy demands your attention with inviting, joyous beats and its vocalists' direct appeals.
"[16] In a song-by-song analysis, Clash writer Josh Crowe thought that "'ENERGY' sees the duo step out of their comfort zone, engaging with an array of previously unexplored artists, genres and themes.
'"[19] In a mixed review, Alexis Petridis of The Guardian held reservations, saying "With nightclubs closed during coronavirus, the third album from the British pop-house duo has an unwittingly mournful quality.
[...] It's obviously not Disclosure's fault that Energy has ended up sounding – at least temporarily – oddly depressing, a succession of paeans to a world of carefree hedonism that's out of reach for the foreseeable future."