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MELANCHOLY SKY
8 Jan 2012
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New album
THE SINGLES
6 Feb 2012 |
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| Date |
August 12 |
| Type |
Review |
| Source |
The Times |
| Title |
The Big Album |
| Country |
UK |
| Journalist/Photographer |
Pete Paphides/ Ross Kirton |
| Pix |
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| Text |
Goldfrapp's decision to stick to what they know leaves Pete Paphides wondering what might have been.
YOU CAN hardly get too sniffy about Goldfrapp's decision to ease off the brakes for their third album. Pop has, after all, been struggling to catch up with them since Felt Mountain appeared five years ago. But while that album quietly set about doing its work, turning an unknown Bristol duo into a word-of-mouth phenomenon, Alison Goldfrapp and Will Gregory were already reinventing themselves. From cinematic pop noir to depraved electro-disco in three years, 2003's Black Cherry showed that Goldfrapp had bought a glitterball and they weren't afraid to use it.
Goldfrapp could have changed their sound all over again, but you can't blame them for not doing so. Having seen Rachel Stevens (Some Girls) score a worldwide hit with a sonic blueprint laid down on Black Cherry, Supernature sees the duo reminding us who came up with this schtick in the first place. With the album released on Monday, the decision appears to have already reaped dividends. The new single, Ooh La La, seems set to top the charts - its familiarity enhanced by the fact that it shares most of its DNA with Norman Greenbaum's Spirit in the sky.
If you like the single then you will probably like the album, with its gaudy analogue glambience and ceaseless procession of synths. And if there is a faint air to all this praise, then that is because there isn't much to many of these songs beyond the Ronseal-dour functionality with which they have been created. Context will determine how much you enjoy the digitized powerchords of Slide In or the pulsing purr of Number 1. In a club they'll work just fine. On the train to work, they may seem a little insubstantial.
But what's lacking? Their two previous albums may have been chalk and cheese, but one vital thing common to both sets was Goldfrapp and Gregory's ability to take an insane idea and make it shine like freshly mined genius. Theremins alongside layers of stratospheric Yma Sumac-style screeching? Why not? Debauched West Country disco dominatrix? Alison Goldfrapp seemed to understand that, in pop, abuse, respect and the occasional surprise are not mutually exclusive.
Indeed, when Supernature remembers to surprise, yu find yourself falling in love all over again. The yodelling that ushers you to the conclusion of U Never Know and the ghostly boom-thump jollity of the pianos on Satin Chic are both flashes of pure inspiration. Sure to follow Ooh La La up the charts is the throbbing amyl pop of Ride a White Horse - the kind of sinuous space boogie that you know Madonna would have given an entire grouse run for, and proff that the requirements of the dancefloor and the carpet can be served within the same tune. Add these sporadic riches to a brace of slo-mo Felt Mountain-style epics and Goldfrapp's third album is hardly a disaster. It might seem a little unjust to judge an artist against the standards that they have set for themselves, but Supernature is the sound of two people treading water when they could be walking on it. |
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