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Review Summary: A confused mess of a lost band. Gravity can be quite the harsh mistress, and the likes of Ladytron are well aware of this fact. This album starts out strong with it’s first track titled “White Elephants”, and boy is it an apt title for the feel of this album. Throughout the entire work, it feels as though Ladytron is trying to ignore the white elephant that is the sound of their last two albums. But this whole affair feels very half-hearted. Tracks like “Aces of Hz”, “Ritual” and “Melting Ice” would be at home on their previous albums, but here, they just feel out of place with their attempts to be a baroque pop band. One wonders how much of an influence their producer, Alessandro Cortini, had on this compared to the last one, where his sound was much more heavily felt. And perhaps that’s the problem.
Ladytron is lost with where they want to stand musically. In some ways, this album feels as though the band is going through a midlife crisis. Gone are the club anthems of meaningless, but always mysterious lyrics. Now we have songs that sound like they want to make some grandiose statement about the state of the world and how we’re all going to aberdeen. But it just doesn’t work for their sound. The blame for these lyrics could possibly rest with Marnie, whose lyrics on her her solo album have the same feel. And then there’s the fact that the band reuses their melodies, most notably on “90 Degrees” which is basically a remix of “All the Way…”.
But not all hope is lost. Ladytron is still able to perform top-notch concerts, that brings the energy that this album is for the most part lacking. And perhaps they will be able find themselves on their next release, which Hunt said would be “paired like ‘Witching Hour’ and ‘Velocifero’”.
During the tour in support of this album, Ladytron only performed about three new songs, and overall it felt more like a tour for their recently released “Best of” album. And one of those songs was a cover of the excellent Death in June song “Little Black Angel”. When I asked Hunt why this was the case, he said that most of the album didn’t feel like “live material”. Make of that what you will.
I really wanted to like this album, but I just couldn’t get into it like their other releases. It has so much potential, but it just does not work for me. This isn’t a bad album, it’s just not the Ladytron I know and love.
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Album Rating: 2.0
My first review. Any advice would be appreciated!
| | | Album Rating: 4.5
The review is pretty well written, even if I don't agree with it. The rating is definitely way too
low.
I think that Gravity the Seducer is a really great album, but it requires quite many listens to be
really appreciated.
| | | Album Rating: 2.0
I really wanted to like this, but I just couldn't.
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Hey, welcome to Sput! Apologies I can't give better feedback right now, as I'm on my phone, but here's some thoughts about your review:
One of the most obvious fixes I can see for your future reviews is control of diction. In general, your review seesaws pretty wildly between pretty proper English and way more colloquial English. In general, of course, it's usually a good idea to ear towards the side of the former, but sometimes it's OK to use the latter sparingly. Your uses of more casual language could use some work - it's one thing to weave something in well, it's another to say "This album starts out strong with it’s first track titled “White Elephants”, and boy is it an apt title for the feel of this album." The problem with this sentence is that the "and boy is it..." is just a little jarring. It's just such an abrupt transition into "poorly-worded" English that it feels kinda off.
Also, it's worth considering how you want to write your review before you do it. This very much has the air of something thrown together without an outline - the review of the album kind of peters out halfway through and loses focus. On that note, discussion of the band's concerts are usually best kept out of a review - you can bring them in depending on how relevant they are to the album, but in this case you take them as kind of a separate entity. I don't think it adds anything to bring in the concerts here tbh.
That said, this was a pretty solid first review. Have a pos, and I'm looking forward to seeing what you'll be writing in the future! Hit me up via shoutbox if you'd ever like more feedback :]
| | | Album Rating: 2.0
Thanks for the feedback! So you're saying I should go for a more serious tone with my reviews? What can you recommend
that I should avoid doing?
Yeah, I wasn't exactly sure how I wanted to outline this. I wouldn't normally put stuff in about the concert, but I was trying
to use it to show that even the band wasn't very into this album. Though with that noted, I'll try to avoid it in the future.
Thanks for the positive feedback.
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I might call "serious" the wrong word, but I'd say that you should treat your reviews the same way you'd treat anything you'd want other people to read. You should definitely read some staff/contributor reviews and see what kind of tone they go for (especially someone like Rudy, who is IMO the best currently active staff writer), and you should come away seeing that despite occasional changes in diction level their (our?) reviews are generally treated pretty seriously. This isn't to say you didn't do that, but the first-person focus of your review (especially the last paragraph, which feels kind of superfluous) generally takes away just a little bit from the review as a whole.
I think I'd say that your review isn't "unserious," but I do think that diction control is something you could work on. It's one of the most likely ways that someone will be turned away by your review, and by and large your style is good but slips occasionally.
(On that note, in the forums there's a thread in the Help/Bugs/Suggestions page where users can post reviews and other users can critique them on their grammar/style/content. You might do well to check in there next time you write, as pretty much all new reviewers can improve pretty drastically with help from others.)
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to follow up on Brostep's advice, there's many ways to pull off a solid review. Plenty of staff/contribs use a very informal style. I think the key is consistency. If your review has a very serious, 'professional' tone, but then you randomly insert some informal bits, it can read weird.
| | | Album Rating: 2.0
Ok, that makes sense. I think I might have an easier time sticking to a formal tone. Writing informally and being good at it sounds somewhat difficult.
I'll check that out when I write my next review. Thanks again.
| | | Album Rating: 4.5
1. Underrated album, Ambulances is an exceptional song.
2. New Ladytron song, first since this album:
https://youtu.be/aeWJ8vkE9w8
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Ummm not feeling this as much as I thought I would...
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