Ladytron
Play Girl/Commodore Rock (Invicta Hi-Fi)
Music journalists - kids, don't believe a word they say. Two weeks ago in these very pages, Ladytron looked and sounded like a pan-European electromodernist wet dream, what with their mixed gender line-up in matching Mao uniforms, Marxist nursery rhymes sung in Bulgarian, doing a Human League cover, next gig in Berlin... "The Velvet Underground 2000, or what?" frothed our man in the black pullover. Who could have imagined, then, that Ladytron actually sound like a Visage tribute band, only not nearly pretentious enough. What is really so smart about replicating, with all apparent sincerity, a musical era whose only redeeming feature was its supreme naffness? Admittedly the Bulgarian rap on 'Commodore Rock' sounds quite alluring, but assuming the title refers to the pioneering efforts in the realm of pocket calculators by a certain computer company then it too is unceremoniously ejected from the culture bunker on the premise that Kraftwerk were here 20 years ago, and even they're not much cop these days.
Keith Cameron
NEW! For the latest music videos and backstage interviews, check out our brand new sister site, NME Video.
Comments do not always reflect the views of NME, or IPC Media, for guidelines visit our Ts & Cs page