Yahoo! Music Album Review

Released on 19/9/05
Label: Warp

Sounding like Stereolab is a tricky business for a band. Even Stereolab themselves tired of the template they'd devised with the superlative drone pop of "Super Electric" and "John Cage Bubblegum", bringing in a host of Brazilian Tropicalia influences amongst others. Birmingham's Broadcast, meanwhile - tied to the 'Lab via the Duophonic imprint - are still firmly in the Sounding Like Stereolab stage of their development. Minimalist electronics? Dreamy yet detached female vocals? Perfect pop filtered through retro futurism? All present and meticulously correct.

Don't write Broadcast off a mere tribute act, though. While Stereolab's space-age pop blasts seemed to inhabit a Moogie Wonderland far removed from the here and now (even Laetitia Sadier's political comment felt like it was in code, somehow), Broadcast set the style in a recognisably urban setting. That's urban as in bricks and mortar rather than swing and bling. Listen to "Tender Buttons" in the comfort of your living room and it feels pleasant but slight. Take it out onto the streets, down into the subways and tube stations, and suddenly it comes alive.

"Black Cat", for example, with its soft glitches and ticking beat off-setting singer Trish Keenan's intonation of "awkwardness happening to someone you love", is shot through with a sense of city living. As the CD spins and the song unspools itself, the music conjures up a series of familiar images: dirty buildings and smog, commuters and flickering neon, freedom and loneliness. Same goes for the hypnotic "Corporeal" - as Trish sighs "under the x-ray, I'm just a vertebrate", the song pulses onwards with a self-sufficient yet solitary momentum.

This mood takes on a sumptuous, much more distinctive, tone when the group drop beats and glitches altogether. "Tears In The Typing Pool" drifts gorgeously through office ennui, Trish staring listlessly out of the window as a compadre strums on an acoustic guitar and picks out gentle organ notes. When they rediscover their electronics, it's with a slightly sharper sense of identity. "Michael A Grammar" could almost be kindergarten electro. "Arc Of A Journey" takes another beatless journey through tones and tenderness.

But just as you feel Broadcast are starting to stumble upon something that's truly their own, they slip back into Sounding Like Stereolab again. Too often the group appear to be searching for a purpose as well as an innovative sound and that promising city atmosphere soon dissipates to leave an album that fizzles out with little spark or ceremony. There are precious moments on here and hints that something truly magnificent could emerge in time, but first Broadcast need to work out exactly where they're going and why.

    by Ian Watson