Music

Strutting around a disco for five years would, we imagine, get a bit tiresome. Especially if you’re wearing the kind of improbable, glitzy heels that Alison Goldfrapp probably wears to do the ironing. Two silver-plated albums (2003’s ‘Black Cherry’ and 2005’s ‘Supernature’) made a proper pop star out of Lady ’Frapp – a woman who has all the odd bits, actual talent and reluctance lacking in Lily Allen et al. But now the glammest band in electro-pop have gone home to put their slippers on and – whisper it – chill out.

Like a musical X-Man, Goldfrapp have made a career out of mutation, from the eerie cabaret pop of ‘Felt Mountain’ to the T Rex-at-Nag Nag Nag stylings of ‘Black Cherry’ and ‘Supernature’. And ‘Seventh Tree’ is a different packet of crisps again, and perhaps the first to be a bit tasteless. The orchestral folk of ‘Clowns’ and ‘Eat Yourself’ lack the dark invention of their ‘Felt Mountain’ counterparts, impressing only the few remaining fans of Beth Orton, who made that sort of thing fashionable. And much of the ambient pop here – HGH’ed-up by classical music nut and Alison’s own Guy Chambers, Will Gregory – sails past unnoticed like Groove Armada.

The songs on the second half of the album bloom… gently. ‘Happiness’ is a twenty-third century Beach Boys, ‘Caravan Girl’ is the whooshing smash-hit Neu! never made, and the dozy ‘Monster Love’ suggests a collaboration between Kylie and Spiritualized at their ethereal best. As an early sound of the summer it’ll suit people who misrepresent Alison as a kaftan-wearing, dippy hippy. But we prefer her as the too-clever-by-half pop queen – a person we don’t see enough of here.