Seventh Tree

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All of Gregory's codeine melodies would be a lot more salvageable, however, if Alison undercut it with the trademark strengths of her voice.

Some of the tracks launch themselves into hippy psychedelia and here and there it sounds like some of the instruments are being looped backwards ( "Little Bird" ).As you might expect from a woman who chose to illustrate her conjunction of electronic music and eroticism by playing a synthesiser with her private parts, Seventh Tree is not overly coyin signposting its new approach.

Their interests were always too diverse and their musical talents too accomplished to become shackled down churning out electro-disco dance numbers - despite what their record company might prefer. And so it's come as no surprise that after having done such with their last album - the amazing Moroder-meets-Weimar glittering sauce-fest that was 2005's Supernature - that Alison Goldfrapp and Will Gregory have opted for a more relaxed and even - crikey! It can be upsetting to longtime fans, but often times the only real hurdle to these new directions is unfamiliarity-- just look at Goldfrapp, who startled their earliest fans by shifting from the surrealistic elegance of their 2000 orchestral-pop debut Felt Mountain to a beat-heavy mid-decade run at the dance charts. But with all the excitement and decadence drained out of the music and the voice, the trite themes stand out a bit more clearly: you can be happy if you give money to people who promise to make your life better ("Happiness"); birds have wings and are free ("Little Bird").At Metacritic, which assigns a normalised rating out of 100 to reviews from mainstream publications, the album received an average score of 78, based on 32 reviews. The album then slows down with a set of sadder, slower pieces that talk about loneliness and despair about broken relationships. The album reached the top 10 in Belgium and Ireland, and the top 20 in Australia, Norway, Portugal and Switzerland.