The new Ladytron album

[petronia]

Ladytron - High Rise
Ladytron - Beauty*2
Ladytron - All The Way...

(Edited next morning) I acquired the new Ladytron album at the same time as the Depeche Mode single and it's been on heavy rotation since (yes, once again we have a case of Sabina temporarily titling fic after what's in Winamp and not bothering to change it afterward). Reviews have generally been positive with a focus on how they "changed their sound", which amuses me because I don't think they did; not very much. The analog synths are buzzier, as befits current fashion, and many of the songs are backed by live guitars/bass/drums - just like how they sounded live on the Light and Magic tour back in 2002. Otherwise they are still writing the same kind of melodies, sung with the same sense of detached melancholy. I always felt their slower, bittersweet ballads were the draw, not the electroclash anthems like "Seventeen".

"High Rise" is representative of their new sound - Kristin, this is probably a better definition of "shoegaze" than I left you with last time. ^^; AFAIK the stylistic hallmarks of the shoegaze sound are "staticky" washes of feedback noise and echoey vocals buried in the mix for a dreamy effect, but it's very much a rock genre, guitars and drums and whatnot. So the Chara album sort of rode the edge between that and... dream pop I suppose.

I sort of wish I'd uploaded "Destroy Everything You Touch", but despite it being a single, my favorite and without a doubt the best song on the album, it's also the one that niggles at me the most. Helen Marnie's voice (which I love) is most suited to playing a kind of cocaine scenester girl heartbreak - as if she knows she's too cool and clever to be so terribly hurt, and the people around her are too ironic and remote to be expected to care. The act must work, or else Ladytron wouldn't be accused of "coldness" so often. But "Destroy Everything You Touch" is so driving and merciless it seems to demand vocals by someone more convincingly unhinged. ^^; I keep thinking how Shirley Manson would sell a line like "destroy everything you touch / today / destroy me / this way".

"Beauty*2" is my second favorite song on the album. I think Pitchfork compared it to Depeche Mode but really it sounds halfway between Orchestral Maneuvres in the Dark and t.A.T.u. (no, really, compare with tATu - We Shout). Meanwhile "Whitelightgenerator" sounds like Berlin's "Take My Breath Away", which is a comparison Pitchfork didn't make, but I suspect the Fork is not so advanced in popist consciousness that it could put a positive spin on that. XD They are right about it being a winter album, though. "All The Way..." is totally a !Christmas song.

1/2 of Ladytron is DJing at Parking next weekend, opening for David Morales. Isn't Parking a gay club? >_> Maybe I'll just wait until they come around on proper tour, which their official site with its creepy red millipedes assures me will take place sometime early next year.

Comments

[one-if-by-land.livejournal.com]

You like Ladytron? ♥! I was introduced to them...two years ago, I think, and have adored them since. The song, "Fire," always, always, always makes me think of sex. For some reason, I feel like I've said that to you before, but I have no clue as to the context. Anyway. Thank you for the downloads.

[petronia.livejournal.com]

Yes, I like Ladytron, and we have had this conversation. XD While they are not one of my absolute favorite bands in the entire universe they are up there, and definitely one for which I have (done) the most fan stuff - I even have a VHS tape documentary about them made back when 604 came out and was caught up in the whole electroclash phenomenon, that was handed to me in a promotional event at a nightclub. And they were the first band I ever went to a live show for.

I used to have a Ladytron icon! But I took it off. :/

[one-if-by-land.livejournal.com]

Yeah, I haven't listened to them in a while; they sort of got shuffled aside in the past year. :x And ahaha, my memory rules, apparently (:x); it's just that I remember raving about Daft Punk a couple months ago and how some of their songs remind me of sex, too, so I wasn't sure which band I was talking about. I think it's a synthpop thing, most likely. MMMMM~ sythpop.

I watched a Ladytron music video once! I think it was lesbian. o_O