After the stilettos: the chunky knit cardigans. You can forgive Alison Goldfrapp for wanting to wrap up warm, lest the electro-vamp persona she inhabited so well through Supernature and Black Cherry finally consume her.
To be fair to the lass, she’s had some mileage out of the look anyway - as much as 2005’s runaway smash gave good thigh, it was essentially a buff retooling of a formula they’d arguably perfected on the terrific likes of ‘Strict Machine’ and ‘Twist’.
Seventh Tree, though in some respects an organic redrafting of the autoerotic Goldfrapp template, picks up where Supernature left off in its setting of the controls for the heart of the mainstream, and misses badly the slickly subversive tone that lifted the band from the realms of coffee table mediocrity.
Put simply: Goldfrapp are no Kate Bush. For all its pastoral pretensions A&E is about as rural as a trip down your local leisure complex; strings, flutes and harps seemingly deployed as signifiers rather than integral parts of the music.
Ms Goldfrapp’s sensual cooing remains as enticing as ever but coupled with tunes as bland as this the overall result is like turning a hairdryer on a set of wind chimes at an unfeasibly low setting – unmemorable, to say the least.
Lyrically there are a few moments of mischief: the genuinely ethereal ‘Clowns’ makes an improbable argument against plastic surgery, and more specifically “titties that live on and on and on”, while the title track finds our protagonist “in a backless dress on a pastel ward”, but whether the music generates enough goodwill to seek out such intricacies is a moot point.
'Little Bird' culminates in a soft explosion of sighing vocals and lightly intoxicated bass and ‘Cologne Cerrone Houdini’ has a woozy hint of Gainsbourg about it to lend some sorely needed edge, but if that’s as life-sappingly dull to read as it is to write, well, you’ll be getting the idea by now.
It’s painful to regurgitate the same coffee table metaphors but, really, Seventh Tree smells of 30-something sex in converted loft apartments; moistened at every aperture and sporting a sanctimonious look that says “grow up, you snivelling indie tossrag”. Oh, fuck off.
"while the title track finds our protagonist"
You made a boob.
I love Goldfrapp but I do have a problem with this album. It's too soft, too delicate. It has been said by many reviewers that "Goldfrapp have gone folk", which is wrong. They've just gone quiet. The only song with any "oomph" is Caravan Girl, and that's track number 9!
The gentleness just doesn't work over a whole album. Maybe they are trying to put us too sleep (I don't mean this sarcastically)?
indeed
that is a boob of the highest order. sorry chap.
Caravan Girl and snoozing
Interesting you should mention 'Caravan Girl' - one of the few moments where this album seems to arise from it's almost catatonic state elsewhere, and *come alive*.
It's a frustrating album, as there are some good ideas there. Somewhere.
I dunno anything about Goldfrapp
except that I almost purchased an album a while back based on her looks. Does this make me a bad person?
Yes
you cunt.
No
it just means you have bad taste in women
hm
i don't think they've even really "gone quiet".... everyone is treating seventh tree like its the odd one out, when really Supernature was their "different" album.
i agree this is a bland album, however.
I wish it weren't true
But it is. I listened to this loads of times and got no joy. I suppose I immediatley compared it with Felt Mountain, but wheras that album is compelling and quiet this one does slip past your ears easily, and a few of the songs really don't go anywhere. Shame, heres hoping for next time.
I've
just deleted Black cherry and Supernature off my ipod... says it all really!
About this new album?
having listened to tracks off the myspace page
and being a huge fan of past Goldfrapp LPs, I have been hugely let down by this LP, it is just so dull, there is just nothing remarkable about this LP. I suppose after making two quite similar LPs 'Black Cherry' and 'Supernature', it is good that they have tried something different, but i didn't realise to do something different they had to something shit
Will my mum like it though?
She got her first two Goldfrapp albums stolen from her car by the kids next door. I've just bought Seventh Tree for her for Mother's Day. :S
"the overall result is like turning a hairdryer on a set of wind chimes at an unfeasibly low setting
Best line ever...
lol@ocean rains comment
i liked it,and thats rare for me so it must be good-end of story
The more I listen to this album, the more I begin to feel
the only people who're 'jumping the shark' (to coin a phrase used with gay abandon on DiS these days) are the reviewers.
Perhaps, when it boils down to it, what a reviewer *least* likes is to have their expectations defied - and what Goldfrapp have done on Seventh Tree is totally change tack - gone are the disco/glam crossovers that were built up over the course of Black Cherry and Supernature, and in come dreampop/folk seethers that nag at the undertow of your conscience, quietly taking you over when you least expect it, with perhaps the singular exception of 'A&E', simply because it might be their most straightforward song ever - and yet, lyrically, musically gorgeous all the same - its single flaw is that it ends so damn soon: a chorus, a bridge, a chorus, thangyouverrmush.
Seventh Tree provokes thoughts of Nick Drake joining the Cocteau Twins to my ears (and I'm beginning to think Alison Goldfrapp is the best female vocalist out there besides Liz Fraser), and while it's rewards are slower and less physical than the previous two albums, it harks back to Felt Mountain but doesn't insult us by rehashing it.
I think Seventh Tree will be due some serious repraisal in the coming months - afterall, Black Cherry was initially reviled by many who felt the change was too harsh from the orchestral, jazzy trip hop of their debut.
about the conclusion
we're all going to be 30something someday & goldfrapp is a 30something woman, what the f*** do you expect?
don't hate just because it's accessible