Marshmello releases ‘Joytime II

‘Check This Out,’ the single Marshmello put out ahead of the record, opens on the same looping vocal hook and rounded, metallic synth tone that carried his earliest work, before swerving midway into a heavier, distortion-driven beat that marks a real turn from where the track started. ‘Joytime II,’ the full-length built around that swerve, arrived 22 June, following ‘Check This Out’ as his most recent release. Features are scarce across the album, limited to ‘Rooftops’ and ‘Paralyzed,’ and ‘Rooftops’ leans into a 90s-inflected turn that sits apart from the rest of the record, built around what stands as the album’s strongest melody.

The album lands on the back of a run that has taken Marshmello from headline sets at Red Rocks and the LA Convention Center to pop hits inside the Billboard Hot 100, with new singles landing across both dance music and hip-hop on a steady clip through 2018. Behind it sits a stretch of collaborations and chart placements that have made him one of the year’s more consistent presences on festival bills.

Marshmello has called the record his “original stuff” — a self-described “flashback” — arriving before pop features and hip-hop crossovers filled out the release calendar around it.