So new wave is back. This whole ‘80s revivalist thing and all its oft-cited trappings?President Bush, corporate greed and, just maybe, a decent Georgetown basketball team?have tracked a parallel course across lesser-known music circles through media spanning from Omaha indie new wavers The Faint to Brooklyn’s electro club renaissance.
Somewhere between these two sounds (yet located in Liverpool) is Ladytron, a gender-balanced keyboard pop four-piece, some of whom DJ on the side. Ladytron debuted early last year with 604, a quirky, well-balanced album of head-nodding dance pop. The group’s second LP, Light & Magic, is the malformed yet occasionally entertaining record of a band taking baby-steps in new directions, sometimes with blas? consequences.
The record’s electro-pop production is pure dance floor, every track stretching synth and organ vamps over simple, snappy drums and twerky noises. Incursions into vocals are less successful, at least when the band attempts the lusher, full-scale pop sound made possible by Mira Aroyo’s admittedly pleasant voice. Taken in verse-and-chorus-sized doses, she is too syrupy-sweet, too hymnal to jive with most of the production work. The sound works better when the synths lead the mix. My personal preference is for whomever it is this band found to mutter things in a language that may or may not be Russian. While Ladytron also used this gimmick on its last record, the band is forgiven, because it does such a fine job of painting a light, dance floor-ready angst. The German freight train-style word for “the vague anxiety one feels upon hearing Slavic new wave” is applicable here.
The ridiculousness (and effectiveness) of such an emotion is telling. Why is this new wave dance stuff in style again? Anyone who tells you that it makes the perfect soundtrack to the new paranoia of the 21st century is missing the point. Fact is, all that happened was a little tightening of the retro belt, cinching it further up towards the present. Some people remembered that with a little alchemy they could easily take a hint of modern-day gloom and convert it into serious dance floor fuel. If that hint takes the form of a woman muttering in a foreign language, then so be it.
Ladytron understands this formula, but not well enough to produce a true electroclash anthem. Miss Kitten and the Hacker’s “Frank Sinatra” is such a song, exactly because it embellishes as little as possible on the simple formula of overly-machined beats and smoky, sultry vocals. So Ladytron suffers a bit from its own originality, which is mild by most standards, but noticeable when placed against the yardstick of most club tracks.
But still, the group’s sonic update has its advantages, because some of these tracks really are quite entertaining. After “True Mathematics,” a decent hybrid of raw electro beats and that old Slavic mumbling thing, the disc gets into some deeper material?its only material of any substance, in fact. “Seventeen” is a perfect encapsulation of the pop style this band developed on 604 and a disturbing story to boot. The following track, “Flicking Your Switch,” is also a gem, a nice blend of Ladytron’s updated production methods with a C & C Music Factory-era house beat. The old-school house stylings are then brought to a fever pitch two tracks later on “Turn It On,” which puts an oft-stolen synth line to great use. Cheap cowbells and handclaps abound.
Sadly, after this point, the album flounders. The production will never be mistaken for any other band, but its shape fails to live up to all standards: preceding tracks, Ladytron’s first record, new wave’s originators (not surprising).
The back half of the record does return for one fierce volley in the form of the lamely titled “Nuhorizons.” Basically, when Bj?rk and I kidnap an alien and dissect it in my barn, this slice of brutal distorto-wave will be on the stereo. Muttering Russian girl tag teams with an organ that sounds like a redlining racecar over a canned-thunder electro beat that ricochets off the walls long after the track has ended. Why can’t this whole record be this good, or at least this different? Is it because the ‘80s are over? Maybe. Style revivals are rarely so good as to be worth reviving themselves. But it’s sad to think that the fans of the future can only hurt a sound. Maybe Ladytron just needs some more time back in the lab.
