Yahoo! Music Album Review

Released on 07/04/08
Label: Rough Trade

It's depressing that The Long Blondes' 2006 debut album wasn't a hit, but perhaps not unfathomable. Sure, "Someone To Drive You Home" was freighted with glamour, hooks and searing insights, but it was also shot through with a superior attitude off-putting to some punters. Acknowledging this, one of the songs on this follow-up is titled "Too Clever By Half". Yet ""Couples"" is an album that seeks to defy expectations. Far from remaking their debut and hoping people go for it this time, The Long Blondes have comprehensively overhauled their sound.

This has been accomplished with the help of Erol Alkan, erstwhile Trash DJ and general electro-indie pioneer. The producer's influence is evident from the moment the magisterial "Century" opens with a Human League-esque wash of synths. Pulsing electronics and production dazzle pervade ""Couples"", yet it also retains The Long Blondes' traditional strengths - the thrilling drum rolls, the octave-leaping vocals, the acidic and almost cruelly analytical lyrics. This is not a "hope you enjoy our new direction" situation. ""Couples"" is simply a successful attempt to sound both different and better.

Though certainly danceable, it's a dark record, with singer Kate Jackson again cast as a femme fatale. In the title track, she revels in the jealousy she draws from other women while bemoaning her own loneliness; in "Guilt" she lingers in a loveless relationship out of cowardice; in "Here Comes The Serious Bit" she offers someone a shoulder to cry on or "body to lie on"; and in "Nostalgia" she admits: "I may never have a daughter 'cause I've far too much to tell her, and far too much to answer for."

What's remarkable about these nakedly confessional (and not always endearing) songs is that they were written by guitarist Dorian Cox. What do they tell us about his attitudes to women? What do we learn from Jackson's willingness to sing them? It's fascinating. But Jackson is no Roger Daltrey: she contributes two excellent sets of lyrics here, loading "Century" with intriguing abstractions and "I Liked The Boys" with harrowing revelations ("My bed has become a prison to me"). She also brings Cox's songs to life with her burgeoning vocal talent, striking an icy, detached tone one minute and a warm, emotive one the next.

Her best moment arrives during "Round The Hairpin", in which her menacing half-whisper complements perfectly the music's prowling, sleazy rhythms. Through all this, the big choruses come thick and fast - none bigger that "Erin O'Connor", a tribute to the supermodel who combines intelligence with glamour. Remind you of anyone? You could argue that those inverted commas round the title prove The Long Blondes to still be too clever by half. A better argument is that they're exactly clever enough.

    by Niall O'Keeffe