What is paradise? It is probably a place where the wash of ethereal voices that herald in Ladytron’s epic new album, Paradises (or the breathy synth sounds that carry it out), will be on tap all day, every day. Repeated listening to this overwhelmingly accessible record brought to mind the terrifying slipstream novel, Ice, by Anna Kavan: a world in which there is no escape from the elements and surrender to the inevitable brings a sinister form of comfort.
Ladytron are back, and with Paradises, their danceable and thoughtful pop music seems to have gained new resolve. Apparently the writing and recording was all done in the studio: one of those “back to basics” moments where ideas flowed thick and fast. So happy Ladytron were with this newfound burst of creativity, they felt the need to get it all down, and out, to us. It should come as no surprise that this album is a long listen. You’d think you were back on the cusp of the millennium, when CDs regularly clocked in at over the hour mark. I can imagine Paradises being a soundtrack for a long motorway journey, with a cheeky burger at a service station thrown in.
Sonically, the template doesn’t change much from the opening bars of the purposeful opener, ‘I Believe in You’, right through, 16 tracks later, to the reflective somewhat downbeat duet, ‘For a Life in London’. It is a rich, lush and often elegant sound: built up with undeniable nous and skill, and delivered by cleverly layered synths and well-weighted beats. At times – courtesy of more dissonant elements, judiciously used as counterpoints to the melodies – the record has something of Ulrich Schnauss in his early 00s pomp.
It is noticeable that some tracks really have a spring in their step, and the opening three numbers suggest they are setting the listener up for a ride of epic proportions. ‘I Believe in You’ is a great opener, pitched at just the right pace to get the neurons tingling. The beautiful fanfare that ushers in ‘In Blood’ has trails of glory about it. And when this assured track patiently sets out its message, backed up by some weeping melodies and the banks of shoegazey, processed sound, one feels that this could be a very special record. The glorious piano riff in ‘Kingdom Undersea’ stabs out an insanely catchy hook on which the track is content to curl itself around. It’s a track boasting odd subject matter, though. Words float in and out of focus; and one could wonder just what Rusalka-driven vision Ladytron are tempting us with when they sing, “Why don’t you come with me to a kingdom undersea? / Come find me.” Mention is also made of rhododendrons a bar or so later, which must be a first in contemporary pop.
Ladytron always had the knack for writing songs that gnawed at the memory. A simple playground melody drives the single, ‘I See Red’, the synth sounds have a straight-to-the-heart simplicity that has something of Human League about them, and predictably, the melody is hard to dislodge from the mind. ‘Death in London’ offers a slight variation on the template, in that the rhythms take more of a front seat but then, like the menace of a bitterly cold climate in Kavan’s novel, the inexorable approach of the synths adds an overpowering shimmer to the track. It’s still a catchy enough number to find oneself humming it an hour or so later, and could easily be used in a film score.
The following clutch of numbers only add to the glamour pile-on. With ‘The Secret Dreams of Thieves’, the Schnauss-isms are pronounced (no bad thing), and the gnomic riddles trotted out by Helen Marnie and Mia Arroyo are nightmarishly seductive; a fairytale text about nothing at all, there to lull you to sleep. Straight after is the simple, uplifting ‘Sing’, a lovely number dripping with bittersweet emotion, followed by ‘Free, Free’, a more melancholy number with a nice melodic counterpoint acting as an emotional undertow. Again, like Kavan’s novel, the songs are oddly impersonal, and often glitter with refracted light, like Abba at their most glacial: soundtracks surely made for slumping in airport waiting lounges, lumbering through carpet warehouses, or for abstractedly humming whilst visiting a garden centre. A terribly addictive forgetfulness: a Korova Milk Bar sound for the digital age.
Make no mistake: if the record ended here, or with the mysterious ‘Metaphysica’ (its slightly distracted nature serving as a very effective closer), Paradises would perhaps be one the strongest “adult pop” records of the year. After this point things sometimes feel slightly unattended. It’s hard to not to like the tracks individually – many are great numbers, in fact – but as a whole, the album does begin to feel somewhat procedural in character. Make no mistake: the music is lovely stuff. It’s just that there is a lot that has already happened in a similar vein. Jacked up on pleasant and beautiful music, the listener uneasily hankers after the glories of some of the earlier numbers whilst enjoying the music being played.
As an album, Paradises dices with sensation and overwhelm – sometimes to its own cost. But to be honest, with the world literally on fire as I type, I will gladly yield to this blissful synthetic embalming process and drink my milk, then lie back with my headphones on and tune out.
