Domingo 29 Sep 2013, 12:22

I can sometimes feel slightly odd, having greedily devoured (and loved) all five of Goldfrapp's previous studio albums. Maybe it's just an unusual type of person who's as enthralled by faux-glam-disco-sleaze as they are by ambient-psych-folk (although Alison and Will's sound has of course encompassed umpteen other things, and perhaps the one thing that they can be relied upon to produce each time is something that eludes precise definition anyway). I bailed on hearing their sixth opus, Tales of Us, at its official premiere (a stiflingly hot Manchester International Festival), perhaps due to a feeling of trepidation…as a diehard fan, what if I wasn't instantly smitten? (I did something similar with Björk's Biophilia in 2011, bought the record, then promptly kicked myself for missing the live shows). Lesson clearly not yet entirely learned, here is my take on the new Goldfrapp in its more polished, less raw form…

"Jo"
Tales…, counter-intuitively, opens with perhaps one of the most subdued cards in the pack. The tone of chilled instrumentation set against sinister or ominous lyrics is set from the word "go", however. Built on a recurring, two-chord piano trick, and a "you'd better run for your life" refrain, it succeeds more as a scene-setting, mood piece rather than a traditional "song", allowing some of the subsequent tracks to, rightly, take centre-stage. (6/10).

"Annabel"
Stop-in-your-tracks emotional and arresting, the gender-confused child back-story, while mildly diverting, hardly matters when the atmospherics and music are as goosebump-inducing as this. Built on a mournful, elegiac acoustic guitar line, the track builds and soars as a string section slowly hovers into view, then falls away again. While "melancholic" is an understatement, it never feels cloying or wallowing. Riveting in its bare-bones simplicity, and for its visceral punch. (10/10)

"Drew"
More enigmatic and mysterious than "Annabel", but still with an equally cinematic "arc". Nothing feels out of place, from the light-as-air electronics to the strings functioning almost as punctuation marks in a perplexing story of "dreams of your skin on my tongue", that somehow manages to be both seductive and creepy at the same time (8/10).

"Ulla"
Perhaps the most MOR-sounding moment here of all, this song is perhaps also the least successful at fully connecting, even on repeated listens. It alternates between a bright and breezy main section, and a sadder, more minor-key-sounding "bridge" (apologies, classically trained musicians), ensuring it can't be simplistically reduced to a "pretty" label as a whole. That said, I found there was little overall for the brain to take hold of (it took some skipping on my fresh-out-the-box vinyl copy for me to really start paying attention to this song). One where an accusation of "background music" might stick. (6/10)

"Alvar"
Mesmeric and quietly hypnotic, this track again builds slowly through a fog of insistent, multi-tracked mandolins (?) before it culminates in a totally unheralded, but no less mantric, backwards-vocal section. Although it's primarily another "mood" piece, of understated, subtle drama, there's enough interesting things going on musically for a more lasting impression to be made. (7/10)

"Thea"
Conspicuous by definition for being the only thing on "Tales…" with the semblance of anything resembling "beats" (and therefore the only thing likely to withstand a remix treatment with a chance of not feeling totally tenuous and/or incongruous), "Thea" elicits a marked double-take anyway due to the attention-to-detail in its production: the pounding, martial rhythm; the sound-effect left at the very end. Injects some welcome dynamic range while still staying true to the overall feel of the album, sonically and thematically. (10/10)

"Simone"
Initially, this track fell into the nondescript, washes-over-you category for me. However, slowly but surely, in four briskly efficient minutes, it succeeds in stealthily creating another mini world of incremental dread and intrigue, begging an appropriately dark music video or short film-treatment. (8/10)

"Stranger"
After the opacity of some of the album's "difficult" midsection, "Stranger" finds Goldfrapp on more accessible, familiar ground. All of the leitmotifs of delicately-picked guitar, soaring strings, and even a whistled tune possibly not heard since the days of their Felt Mountain debut, are present and correct. It succeeds, however, by including some chord changes from heaven, and in being utterly charming. (10/10).

"Laurel"
This has an analogue, tinny, almost cosy and nostalgic feel that once again possibly hasn't been suggested or hinted at since the very first Goldfrapp record. Wistful, romantic, effortless-sounding and yet extremely hard-to-imitate (and therefore quintessentially Goldfrapp). (10/10)

"Clay"
Tales ends on a widescreen, poignant and bittersweet note, with a song inspired by a love letter from a World War combatant to one of his fallen comrades. If I'm being brutally honest, I think I was in fact more "moved" by Laurel and Stranger, but this is, on its own terms, a perfectly fine coda to an absorbing album which in places sets the bar extremely high. (6/10)

Overall: 8.1/10
Tales of Us is by no means flawless. Alison's trademark penchant for close-miked or half-enunciated vocals doesn't allow for much of an appreciation based on the lyrics (although they're mercifully reproduced in full in the sleeve notes), and there are definite patches where the admirable striving for aural cohesion inadvertently results in vague washes of sound that are a little too soft-focus to fully satisfy. When it hits its targets, however, (Annabel, Thea, Stranger, Laurel), Tales of Us contains some genuine moments of jaw-dropping beauty, which are sure to weave yet further layers of magic as autumn gives way to the winter of 2013-14. It's a bold artistic statement from a duo which, while relying on some tried-and-tested tics, takes the Goldfrapp mission statement somewhere entirely new.