Ladytron – Verocifero

• 10th Jun 2008

Ladytron are an electro / synth outfit and are back with their new long player ‘Velocifero’. Deriving themselves quite clearly from the 80’s their sound is a car-crash of Visage, ‘Black Celebration’ era Mode and Kraftwerk. The 13 tracks present are laden with a dark, seedy and grim underbelly and give the impression of a some what moody and dimly lit creation.

From the outset ‘Blackcat’ pummels your eardrums with some hammer head beats whilst oscillating Bulgarian spoken vocals whisper softly across the layered up slabs of electronique.
And that my friends typically sums up the album, albeit the rest of the vocals are sung in English bar ‘Kletva’. Kinda disappointing that I arose to this conclusion pretty quickly but whilst current single ‘Ghosts’ is mellifluous it really lacks any killer hooks or snares that really bite you and give you anything to be excited or even slightly aroused about!

There are plenty of clean lines here, no fat just straight ahead dank and arcane synth , however there is a real lack of creative substance in their sound and this really prevents Ladytron touching anymore than their immediate fanbase. If you want to hear how it should be done then consider investing in our antipodean friends The Presets.