Archive for the ‘Gravity The Seducer’ tag
Ladytron – Gravity The Seducer
Ladytron’s ability to generate an etheral, alternative electronic reality comes across trippy and clear on Gravity The Seducer (Nettwerk). Comprised of four members who met in Liverpool, the well-rounded two-female two-male foursome’s music has a feel of a 1960′s girl band gone dark, plugged in, taken to a haunted house and filtered through the “fantasy” setting on a keyboard. The release comes on the heels of the band’s greatest hits album spanning active years from 2000-2010.
Ladytron has a definite lock on the chilly appeal of New Wave that can be moodwise either get up and dance or sit back and stare into space, often within the same track. On this album things happen that are interesting enough to make you temporarily lose awareness of your immediate surroundings. Sounding like Enya or Dolores O’Riordan of the Cranberries in a poppier trancier mood, frontwoman Helen Marnie on “Mirage” delicately focuses vocal melancholy melancholy set to a compelling track that summons up thoughts of Duran Duran’s single “Planet Earth” off their eponymous first album. There is a minor but audible miss here: “Ritual” It’s an instrumental that follows an unwavering unvaried melodic line and thumping drums which unpleasantly mirrors the discomfort of an obsessive thought- OCD, now with synthesizer. Good idea, but its execution goes wayard.
“Ambulances” has a thundering but controlled intensity intoned with soft shimmering hissing whispers. “White Gold” speaks of the “color of deception,” soaring and falling in heaven-to-hell sonic climbs, then reverses to hover in a kind of musical mezzanine. It’s kinda exhilerating: The song seems to encapsulate moments of sober reckoning when you realize what’s really going on in a given situation or relationship and that it’s not good. “White Elephant” dramatic, stylish, glassy, painting with sound – it’s shoegazing music at times but the shoe goes through different morphs as you stare at it.
Gravity The Seducer does what it needs to do in that you’ll pay attention but the needle of its innovativeness sometimes gets stuck in its own groove.
Ladytron – White Gold by nettwerkmusicgroup
