As someone more linguistically inclined than the average music listener, I always found Ladytron’s lyrically lacking synth pop to be more of an appetizer than a main course. Both 604 as well as Light and Magic offered catchy tracks, sure to install themselves in your head, but ultimately providing little sustenance.
While their earlier offerings might not have had substance, they inarguably always provided plenty of style, (liner notes chock full of the group’s perfectly mussed hair, haunting eye makeup and Urban Outfitters fashions alerted listeners to the high level of style long before the album ever entered the stereo).
Songs like “Blue Jeans” and “Play Girl” were adept at evoking a ‘60s Euro style sound that made other groups pale in comparison. While they gave listeners something to tap their feet to, there was never much more lurking beneath the music beyond a catchy refrain. One track that hinted at a more complex interpretation was Light and Magic’s “Seventeen”, which marked a sign of things to come as it’s simple, catchy lyrics hinted a darker reference to pedophilia.
Witching Hour, the groups third release, follows the route of “Seventeen” and takes it several steps further, featuring songs whose dark lyrics are so expertly crafted that it scarcely seems to be work of the same people.
The album’s first standout track, “Destroy Everything You Touch”, features a compellingly self-destructive refrain set alongside catchy, dramatic melodies. This marriage of catchy pop alongside the disturbing and dark is a strategy the group evokes throughout the album, creating a work far more compelling than anything created before.
The most powerful track is by far “Soft Power” which builds to a haunting shivery climax, making the listener feel as though they are walking alone down the shadowy path within a horror movie, waiting for the killer to strike at any moment. Lyrically the song evokes the mentality of hedonistic club dwellers, abandoning the light of day for the darkness of the dance floor. “We’re not sleeping at the wheel/the wheel is turning down a sheet that kills for us”, says the song as it hints at darkness and decay. Later the track advises to “claw your eyes so you’re not seeing”, as it sings of life absent from reality and living in the “witching hour”.
Perhaps the most overwhelming aspect of Witching Hour is how well the album sets the mood, each song is eerie and captivating, sending shivers down the listeners’ spine. Amazingly, the theme never tires out or wears thin, as even the instrumental tracks prove to provide captivating melodies.
“Witching Hour” proves to be what “Grand Turismo”, was for the Cardigans, a dark spin after a pattern of overly sugared mindless pop. And hopefully, unlike the Cardigans they won’t leave us waiting for years until offering as equally tasty. |