It shimmers and shines with the warmth of a hazy summer, an electric whirlpool of sound over which Alison's glistening voice soars. The 103 third parties who use cookies on this service do so for their purposes of displaying and measuring personalized ads, generating audience insights, and developing and improving products. Seventh Tree unveils an Alison Goldfrapp quite different to the one we saw on her career highpoint to date, 2005's Supernature .

Nate Patrin of Pitchfork was less impressed, stating that the album's ambience is "so subtle and slow-moving it doesn't seem to go anywhere, and it coasts on some frothy sense of pleasantness that evaporates the moment the song ends.Kat Lister of NME expressed that " Seventh Tree is bound to ruffle a few electro-feathered fans, but there's no denying it's a venture that sets the pair into new experimental territory. Whereas that album was grandiose, glammy, and almost aggressive in its brash, thrusting sexuality, Goldfrapp's fourth album is no less sensual, but rather more subtle in its approach. Use of this site constitutes acceptance of our User Agreement and Privacy Policy and Cookie Statement and Your California Privacy Rights. Beautiful melodies and electronic sounds and over this arrangement Alison pours out a string of life-affirming lyrics promoting actions that you can take that can result in a nirvana of sorts.

There were artists for whom constant reinvention was a raison d'être - David Bowie and Dexys Midnight Runners - but more commonly, it was a matter of necessity for bands buffeted by the turbulence of an unpredictable music scene. However, Seventh Tree isn't so much a radical change for Goldfrapp as it is a shift in focus; even if it doesn't sound glam, it sounds glamorous.But she's not assertive or seductive or mysterious here; what she's offering is the kind of mannered, chirpy delicacy you could get from any number of indie-folk and adult contemporary artists piped through off-brand coffeehouses everywhere.

Even if Seventh Tree is sonic dishwater, I'll give Goldfrapp enough credit to assume that this isn't change for its own sake, that the motivation for this album's tone wasn't simply a fatigued boredom with their old sound. The look of the glamorous disco diva that appeared on Black Cherry and Supernature is replaced by a more natural but slightly less confident appearance.

It makes me wonder why others can't put a whole album on one disc like this (and still sound good), as the whole two disc thing is just too much to be bothered with, even if they (Occasionally) bring anything more to the party in terms of sound quality. It arrived containing the CD, as well as a bonus DVD containing the making of the album, with nice home footage of Will and Allison's house studio and luscious countryside scenery. This is not Goldfrapp Unplugged, although acoustic guitars and strings waft in and out of the album effortlessly - if anything, Seventh Tree's electro hippie-chic is the duo's most polished and luxe work yet.