Ladytron's first major blip on the radar was Another Breakfast With You, a tune forged from the same template of glacial synths and wry observation that make this album's Seventeen a contender for single of the year. Light and Magic sees their trademark electro-pop luxuriously fleshed out while avoiding the fries-with-that engorgement of Fischerspooner's; in fact the MMFF foursome (girls pout while men work the machines, natch) were ploughing this particular furrow long before some card slapped '-clash' on his old rope and started charging for it, and their devotion to the cause has yielded marvellously authentic results. Curled up in an adamantium time-bubble, their rhythms remain bluntly impassive while the synths slide over them like lipgloss, ballgown glamour roughing it on the dancefloor.
For what is ostensibly a homage to retro pop, though, Light and Magic plays a clued-up hand. The opening snare on Nu Horizons is more Massive Attack than Human League, and heralds a pounding, accented beat far from the pared thuds
If so they don't want to let on. The majority of tracks are ambushes of bloodlust populism – Evil packs a killer melody into Helen and Mira's seductive deadpanning, the title track whispers and teases over a Dr.Whovian rumble, and Seventeen spins you right round (round, round) its little finger with alarming panache. At fifteen tracks it risks labouring the point, but this is a laser-accurate, impenetrably cool nostalgia trip from some lens-friendly kids. And that, if you think about it, makes Ladytron closer to the European Strokes than The Libertines get in their most elaborate wet dreams.
Nathan Midgley.
nathanmidgley@hotmail.com
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