Another impressive body of work from electro-pop royalty
Since 1999 Helen Marnie, Mira Aroyo, Daniel Hunt and Reuben Wu, better known as Ladytron, have been creating tidal waves in the electropop universe. After releasing albums pretty consistently from 2001 all the way until 2011, the band’s self-titled sixth album is 20 years in the making. Through the experimental sounds the band put on, Ladytron pushes the boundaries of the genre they know and love.
The 13-track album starts with a rock ballad of sorts, “Until the Fire.” Angelic voices sway with a wall of rock-n-roll sound. After six minutes, the opening track fades itself into “The Island,” a tropical take on an ’80s flavored electro-pop dance hit. The melodic sound hits hard against the wall of the next track “The Animals.” A tried and true Ladytron song if there ever was one.
The album takes a bit of a spacey turn into “Tower of Glass” and “Paper Highways.” Both have a bit of a haunting sound to them while leaving the listener lost in a space of their own imagination. Heavy synths can be found through twists and turns of the album, especially on tracks like “Deadzone” and “You’ve Changed.” Both different in their own ways, each track offers a deeply moving dance appropriate beat and mesmerizing vocals.
The album comes to a close with tracks “The Mountain” and “Tomorrow Is Another Day.” The former, a track treading uphill through the beats, is a song depicting the feeling of pure isolation, and the latter, a song about old memories and mental scars. What both tracks have in common though is their cinematic sounds and heavy lyrics, leaving the listener feeling like they are watching the end credits of a motion picture.
The Liverpool based band are no strangers to creating music that reaches the masses and causes them to listen on repeat. That being said, some tracks on the self-titled album seemed to blend into one another almost too much. Although the synths kept the party going through track to track, some tracks missed the mark a bit. The album hits major highpoints with “The Animals” and “The Mountain” where Ladytron gets to shine the most. When the band is mixing their keyboards with psychedelic synths, nothing can stop them. Overall, the sixth installment from the four members is every bit dance party as it is a meditative exploration.
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