Ladytron - Witching Hour

Much darker and less overtly synth pop than any of their earlier work, Witching Hour is almost unrelentingly gloomy, covering topics like the fleeting nature of relationships, destruction, and war. However, the album wears it well, conjuring a glamorous dystopia with songs like "High Rise" and "Soft Power" -- it's not often that bleakness sounds this pretty. It also helps that Witching Hour boasts some of Ladytron's finest songwriting to date, including the brilliantly melodramatic, ever-so-slightly gothy "Destroy Everything You Touch" and "International Dateline," which shows the band hasn't lost its touch when it comes to writing affecting breakup songs. By stripping away some of the synth pop veneer of 604 and Light & Magic, the shoegaze/dream pop influences that bubbled underneath the surface of Ladytron's music come to the fore on this album. "Sugar"'s trippy blur of buzzsaw guitars and mechanical rhythms take this sound in a noisy, poppy direction, while "WhiteLightGenerator" and the wintry "All the Way" end Witching Hour with a trancelike serenity. While the album loses some of the impressive focus of its first half as it unfurls, the layered, intricate production on tracks like "Beauty*2" and "CMYK", one of Ladytron's best instrumental interludes, remains interesting. While Helena Marnie's ghostly vocals are as lovely and effective as ever, Mira Aroyo's small presence on Witching Hour is one of the album's few disappointments, although she shines on "Fighting in Built Up Areas." Nitpicking aside, Witching Hour is the album that Ladytron always seemed capable of, and its dark, dreamy-yet-catchy spell makes it the band's most sophisticated, and best, work to date.
(Year of Release: 2005)

Track List:
1. High Rise
2. Destroy Everything You Touch
3. International Dateline
4. Soft Power
5. CMYK
6. amTV
7. Sugar
8. Fighting In Built Up Areas
9. The Last One Standing
10. Weekend
11. Beauty*2
12. White Light Generator
13. All The Way

Download: Ladytron - Witching Hour (73.3MB)