Seventh Tree

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Barney Hoskyns of The Observer commented that the duo "have made an album as hummably lovely as it is knowingly referencing of a certain tradition of neo-psychedelic English whimsy. Does that look from Alison tell us that she is walking away from her glam period and wondering nervously if we will follow? Despite being critical of Alison Goldfrapp's "wispy, ethereal, often impenetrable vocal approach", Dave Hughes of Slant Magazine opined that the album is "most compelling for the way in which the band's regained austerity and naturalism contrasts with their more recent hedonism. The year of 1977 was tough for Gryphon, a medievally inclined prog rock band heavy on the crumhorn and the hey-nonny-no.

There was a certain circular irony in Goldfrapp being ripped off by Madonna: like Mrs Ritchie, Goldfrapp's skill lies in a canny ability to alight on other artists' ideas and polish them up for mass acceptance.Seventh Tree signals a new direction for Goldfrapp, but I suspect that it is merely a stepping-stone to a new Goldfrapp sound. silent under the needle in the interims, and the music is all where it should be in terms of detail and power. 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.

The far-out kicks in on the poptastic Caravan Girl, which is a bit like running naked through a cosmic soup, and the fluttering mellotrons of Little Bird show up the likes of Oasis' ham-fisted attempts at psychedelia. If she can make something this fresh out of ostensibly stale source material, what might she do next?

When you've appeared on stage playing a theremin with your crotch while dressed as a kind of besequinned Nazi air hostess, as Goldfrapp did after the release of 2005's Supernature, you could reasonably argue that you've explored the possibilities of camply sexualised glam-influenced electro-pop pretty thoroughly. Quite what the lyrics are driving at remains a mystery - they could just be a load of old bollerghs - but notice of a musical volte-face is duly served. Like the bulk of the album, there's a certain beauty in opener "Clowns", but it's an empty one-- more lullaby than pop song, it's symptomatic of what happens when you take all the grandeur out of big sweeping melodies. So it's more esoteric than Felt Mountain (and that's just my opinion, just so ya know cause I love that CD too for it has it's own special mystery).