Yahoo! Music Album Review

Released on 05/10/09
Label: Virgin

It's been 11 years and four (proper) albums since "Sexy Boy" and "La Femme D'Argent" whispered seductive sweet nothings in our ears but still those neckerchief-wearing retro-futurists Jean-Benoit Dunckel and Nicolas Godin have nothing in their ever expanding oeuvre (aside from "The Virgin Suicides" OST, perhaps) that matches the will-o'-the-wisp synth-pop of that now classic debut, "Moon Safari". It certainly didn't help that the Gallic twosome diverted their impeccably stylish selves to the nerdy, guitar-y realms of prog and some naff Kraftwerk pretensions.

But as 2007's Japanese-specked "Pocket Symphony" proved they still have the knack to charm the pantaloons off us. And this fifth studio album pitches them once more in a dream world that sounds a little like shopping mall muzak as might be conjured by a chops-heavy conflab between soundtrack ace Lalo Schifrin, motorik-groove king Michael Rother, that magnificent sleazeball Serge Gainsbourg and masters of the clipped and nimble funk that accompanied Blaxploitation flicks in the '70s.

With sometime Beck drummer Joey Waronker pinning the duo to myriad grooves, be they propulsive and gritty ("Night Hunter", "Eat My Beat") or gently ebbing (the summery caress of "Sing Sang Sung"), Air have a mast to nail their cloud-walking synths and Moog-scapes on, as well as the grubby stoner riffs, wheezing harmonia and bespangled keyboards that prove they're now a more enlightened kind of synth fundamentalist. In fact, "Be A Bee" is positively dangerous sounding, its nutty, vibrating Moog entwined around guitar lines reminiscent of Clinic and The Fall.

However, there are half a dozen others that sound too polite and pale among the livelier tracks and which begin to test our patience. Returning to their old, slightly winsome habits of letting aerated filler flap in the breeze, as they do on "Tropical Disease", and meandering prettily without ever painting a full picture, as on the pointless "Love", too often Air make pleasant noises that feel like time wasted in the year 2009.

Perhaps the less successful tracks here might have been novel and fresh 15 years ago, but interest in library music and analogue synths was piqued long ago and some of "Love 2" sounds like one example of many these days. Had they explored the digi-funk that drives "Night Hunter", a sinewy thing that sounds a little like Fela Kuti teaming up with Tonto's Expanding Head Band, they may have found themselves leading the pack again. Loveliness isn't all that's required.

    by Chris Parkin