Despite possessing thoroughly seductive, breathy vocal chords with the capacity to tingle even the most rigid spines, Dot Allison's decade spanning career has never amounted to more than false starts and mild curiosity. One Dove, her former dubtastic combo, never delivered on their early promise and her solo debut, released in the late nineties, sank under the weight of its own confused state.
Now her new look and a new album, 'We Are Science', comes complete with an equally new sound. Largely written and produced by her own fair hand, it's a varied affair lurching from the acoustic melancholy of 'Wishing Stone' and sweeping, blissed-out symphonics of 'Performance' to the uplifting Mercury Rev produced 'Strung Out'.
However, aided and abetted by Lone Swordsman and Radioactive Man Keith Tenniswood and his rather special brand of uranium tinged machine funk, the album's backbone is the cold, clinical sound of electro. At times this proves to be an inspired move - 'Make It Happen' is a moody take on New Order style beats and bass and 'I Think I love You' is ridden with urgent, filthy electronics and crisp, mechanised rhythms.
Yet on the opening, murky, plodding pulses of 'We're Only Science' she sounds a little too detached for comfort. Equally, despite the superb nagging, off-kilter, four-to-the-floor, robotic groove of the single 'Substance', her vocals again fall a little flat. "In need of some substance" she deadpans - in this case very apt. That aside 'We Are Science' is by far and away her finest work to date and the retro/futuristic world it inhabits has finally given her a home.
