Seventh tree wasn’t what I had expected at all. A friend of mine a couple of years ago told me I really had to check out Goldfrapp, he said it would be something that I would like, we were talking about syrupy pop electronics. He said it was perfect in that genre, like poppy but with enough dance music in it that it was just really good.
Seventh Tree is not like that at all. Not to say it’s bad, but this is a totally different sound. Oh to be fair I finally went and listened to some old Goldfrapp (I’m lazy okay so just leave me alone, I never get around to doing anything, well that’s not true but I usually just forget about stuff.
Forget about bands I’m supposed to listen to. forget; to do the dishes, what I was in the middle of doing, to go to work, to bathe. You know just the normal things people forget. See I’m not a bad person I just have almost no memory. Or maybe I am a bad person – I don’t know). And the older stuff pretty much was as he said so there I did it.
Seventh Tree is a fairly radical departure though, into this sort of trippy like singer/songwriter music, with weird electronic undertones. I’d almost want to call it folk, but that’s not really right.
And musically there are some really interesting washes of ambient soundscpae going on. Though at times I find the vocals grate a bit. I’m just not sure of Goldfrapp is comfortable enough yet with the change for this style to sound really good. I think they need to do a bit more digging into their souls or something, but it is a really interesting experiment.
Perhaps by the next album they will have it down and it will actually be really cool. I think they are a little afraid of sounding too electronic and want to sound more hippie dippie singer songwriter, because there are a few sort of electronic jams and blips that make the songs sound really cool, but then they sort of seem to shy away form them to make it sound happier and more pop, but in doing so sound more generic.
But its does have a nice 60s lounge/Stereolab vibe going on at times. So if you really like that sort of thing, and I know a lot of people do, then you’ll love this. And that’s not to say that I don’t like this or thing it’s crappy, just that it could have been more interesting to push a little bit more of a hybrid with the old sound, made it sort of transitional.
That said, the song “Happiness”, in all it’s hokiness and cheese is really quite awesome. There, I said it: it’s like a perfect pop gem. “Happiness” is in fact the perfect name for this song.
Actually it s a pretty decent album for spring, like as the flowers are coming out and all that crap, it really fits everything like some of those happy birds and flowers type of music. Listen to it now. For your own sake.
