Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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31 of 33 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Where's Mira?, October 5, 2005
This album is in some ways a step up for Ladytron and in some ways a step down, depending upon how one chooses to look at it. On the positive side, "Witching Hour" is warmer and more mysterious than anything they have previously done. The soundscapes are incredibly lush and sweeping while also dense and fuzzy. This makes for a very interesting listening experience and Helen Marnie's vocals are better than ever. She sounds almost surreal, particularly on "International Dateline" and "Beauty*2". In a word, WOW. On the negative side, Mira Aroyo is featured on only two tracks and her presence is not nearly as prominent on this album as it was on previous albums. I have always thought that the interplay between her thick, Bulgarian vocals and Marnie's sweeter, more melodic vocals really gave Ladytron an edge. While Marnie has the voice to carry the album herself, she sounds better when complemented by Aroyo and similarly, Aroyo sounds better when backed by Marnie. Aroyo has always been less vocally prominent than Marnie and on this album she is almost non-existent. One fears that she will disappear into the background as Marnie takes over as the frontwoman of the band. My only other complaint is that I can't quite figure out the hidden track. This album contains a "hidden" 14th track, yet it is nothing but nine minutes of silence. Perhaps this is supposed to be symbolic? Who knows? "Witching Hour" is otherwise a very strong effort and an album that rewards repeated listening. It is definitely on my top ten list of albums released in 2005.
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8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
WITCHING HOUR is LADYTRON's finest to date, October 10, 2005
I've been following LADYTRON since I saw the video for "Playgirl" in early 2001. Upon buying 604, I knew that the band was destined for big things with the synth-based '80s sounds that at once mimicked and simultaneously outshined anything ever done by the likes of Depeche Mode, the Human League or Visage. As a collection of early tracks, 604 sparked a musical movement of '80s-inspired electro-rock that we are still experiencing a la The Killers, Interpol, The Bravery and others. By Fall 2002, we were treated to Light & Magic, a more polished collection of LADYTRON songs that not only avoided the 'sophomore slump' but managed to impress critics worldwide, ending up on Rolling Stone's Top 50 albums of the year. And, honestly, who could resist the cross-over synthetic appeal of tracks like club hit "Seventeen," the '60s pop inspired "Blue Jeans," electro-dance favorite "Evil," and the lush title track?
Fast forward to Witching Hour (2005). After switching labels in 2004, the band set out to make a record that incorporated a broader range of influences. If the first two records took cues from Kraftwerk, then Witching Hour takes its leads from the likes of The Kinks and My Bloody Valentine ("Sugar"), New Order ("Destroy Everything You Touch"), Lush ("WhiteLightGenerator"), and the Cocteau Twins ("All The Way"). Don't get me wrong: This album is NOT about LADYTRON trying to do its best to rip off anyone else. They take these influences and make them distinctly their own; each track is quintessential LADYTRON. It's a well produced concept album that takes you on a dark journey from start to finish. Witching Hour is successful in that it displays the breadth of the band's talents, now incorporating guitars and a rougher, edgier sound (think feedback and fuzzy electronic overlays). At times, the band can even be political ("Soft Power") without hitting you over the head and can craft the most ominous of dance tracks ("Fighting In Built Up Areas"), sure to be a goth favorite.
What works most about the album is that it appears that LADYTRON have finally produced a record that speaks to a wide range of the band members' personal musical influences. Produced by Jim Abbiss (Kasabian, Placebo), Witching Hour will appeal to a broader audience than just the electroclash set. Granted, there are tracks that are planted firmly in that camp ("Weekend") but other songs stretch the band to its creative limits, offering us a chance to hear what a proper LADYTRON ballad sounds like ("Beauty*2"). What's refreshing is that all of these seemingly different tracks sound great from start to finish - mostly due to the strong vocals offered by Helen Marnie. She is at her most mature and confident on Witching Hour. And while Mira Aroyo only takes the lead on a couple of tracks ("AMTV" and "Fighting In Built Up Areas"), her performance is solid as well. By the way, Mira also offers up the lead vocals on one of the best LADYTRON Bsides to date, the flipside of "Destroy Everything You Touch" called "Nothing To Hide." Check it out.
And, for those people who've been asking about why Track 14 is nothing but dead airtime, well just look at the running time of the album, 60:02. That's almost exactly one hour - a witching hour, if you will. While you make think that's silly or misleading, it's the kind of attention to detail that makes Witching Hour one of the strongest indie-electro-rock records of the decade. Everyone should own this album, in my opinion. And, so far, everyone that I've suggested it to has loved it immensely. Perhaps you will too. LADYTRON at their best!!!
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42 of 57 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Ladytron's quest to make the ultimate Bret Easton Ellis soundtrack continues..., October 5, 2005
Witching Hour is less of a progression musically than emotionally for Ladytron -- if 604 was impish and playful with its battery of cheap Kraftwerk-quoting synthesizers, and Light and Magic had the feel of an art project emanating from a burnt-out apartment on Berlin's Kastanienallee, Witching Hour finds the band fully mature and even inheriting the adult-disco mantle of ABBA. And make no mistake, this is the best disco album since Voulez-Vous, hipsters be darned.
Listeners wondering what happened to Mira Arroyo should watch the "Sugar" video, ample proof that Helen Marnie has evolved from a shy kid with feet planted behind her keyboard into a swaggering frontwoman who appears to be the reincarnation of Claudette Colbert circa 1932's Cleopatra. It feels like the power behind the band has shifted to Marnie's perspective, or at least her perspective as Daniel Hunt sees it. Her solo vocals give the album the feel of a death-obsessed ( but not Goth! ) young woman entering into relationships that she knows beforehand are doomed by the consciousness of her own mortality. The themes are the same as on their other albums -- the vague unease of the industrial age, the annihilation that romance leaves in its wake -- but Witching Hour, despite its heartless facade, is one healing ice bath. As usual on Ladytron albums, the most innovative songs are confined to the final stretch. Here the last four songs ( as well as their all-time classic, "International Dateline" ) confront people with the darkness of youth, the hopeless search for love and recognition, that most pop music unequivocally celebrates. The burning "Weekend," far from being a call to party hearty, envisions a girl who has to be actively rescued from the vicious cycle of working all week and losing herself in degeneracy on Saturday -- deceptively simple, it's actually a hymn to the end of capitalism and the overflowing of Christian love ( in other words, heaven. ) Like fire and brimstone preachers used to do, Ladytron warn us not to be too attached to life.
The most uncanny aspect of this album, however, is the mood and aura it shares with Bret Easton Ellis's latest novel, Lunar Park. The Ellis connection is not unintentional -- throwaway instrumental "CMYK" hilariously quotes "West End Girls." But how to explain the almost subliminal theme of a new generation about to arise, who, like the Children of the Damned, are above the standard definition of "emotion"? Opener "High Rise" situates Ladytron as the heralds of this generation -- "New sun rising / Our day dawning" -- who represent an entirely new concept of humanity, while most of the other songs demand that we cure ourselves of the ugly ego-driven selfishness of most love affairs. In short, Witching Hour is Cameron Crowe's worst nightmare.
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