Black Cherry

(...) Black Cherry bears all the hallmarks of its predecessor. The haunting, ethereal beauty still lingers, despite the radical new direction that Alison Goldfrapp and her musical collaborator Will Gregory have taken. And what a direction!

A pounding, glam-rock-electro-funk-pop odyssey, it is catchy as hell, and with raunchier, sexier lyrics, is rather more tantalising than fairy tale mysteriousness of Felt Mountain. Opening track Crystalline Green is a terrific introduction, pretty much setting out the stall for the remaining nine tracks - hefty bass lines, lovely retro synths (can't beat 'em!), not to mention that gorgeous voice....

And although first single 'Train' cranks things up a notch, the title track brings us back to Felt Mountain territory, and together with the likes of 'Deep Honey' and 'Hairy Trees (excellent song titles!), should appease those who find the upbeat sound a bit heavy going. Particular favourites would have to be the sexy, catchy 'Twist'(containing the choice lyrics "Put your dirty angel face/Between my legs and knicker lace"), second single 'Strict Machine', and the brilliant opener 'Cystalline Green'. The album tails off slightly with the last two tracks, but this does not lessen the overall effect of the album.

Black Cherry is a more energetic, exciting and vibrant album than Felt Mountain, but Goldfrapp have not compomised their unique sound merely to knock out something more mainstream. (...)

Goldfrapp emerged onto the music scene at the turn of the century with the debut album Felt Mountain. The excellent single Lovely Head got hijacked by mobile phone adverts and helped shift half a million units for Mute. Containing atmospheric John Barry inspired lo-fi songs, Felt Mountain became one of those coffee table albums filling a gap for those who mourned the passing of Portishead and The Sneaker Pimps. Personally, I could take or leave it and soon forgot about them.
Fans were expecting the follow-up to be a safe version 2.0 of Felt Mountain. You can imagine how shocked some are to find that Black Cherry is in fact an in-your-face electronic album with grinding analogue basslines, chattering synths and dominant beats. As the lead singer Alison said, ‘we went into the studio and turned on the machines’ and this welcome change in direction has thankfully provided a more varied album. Goldfrapp are no longer a band for 40-something dullards. This sleazy electro pop with suggestive lyrics (about the delights of oral sex on Twist) is aided by many weird sounds of invention. Analogue in nature with as many layers as the Human League’s 2001 Secrets album, Black Cherry is quite an achievement technically. This is the kind of album Madonna had tried to make with Music and American Life but she never quite pulled it off.
With no retro nods back to that era, all the tracks sound oddly modern. The first single released ‘Train’ was enough to win me over with its updated glam rock sound moulded into some very deep bass sounds. This track really owes more to the early 70s than anything released a decade later. The second single 'Strict Machine' (which deserves a rating of 9/10 on its own), has similar glam rock routes but with no guitars in sight. If 'Train' didn’t win you over, Strict Machine will blow you away. It is infectious and unforgettable and no pre-sets were used during the making of this record. Those not yet familiar would hace heard the pervy electro of Strict Machine many a time on TV trailers and adverts in recent months.
Although melodic throughout, this isn’t a conventional album in the classic pop sense. Crystalline Green’s title hints at how sharp this album sounds. You can hear every sound, crisp and clear as most electronic music should be. Fans of Felt Mountain shouldn’t be too despondent, there are still a few of those John Barry moments such as Deep Honey whilst Hairy Trees is very seductive like Saint Etienne at their peak.
Title track Black Cherry though is the real star of the pack. Warm analogue synths and beautiful string arrangements dominate this electro ballad with a vocal performance that simply gives you the shivers. It was seeing Goldfrapp perform this track live on BBC-2 that turned me into a committed fan and the album has rarely left the CD player. The final bonus is that Alison Goldfrapp has an enchanting voice and possibly one of the best female singers the UK has produced in quite a while.
Nu-electro for the cool kids

My first experience of Goldfrapp was hearing the mesmerising song 'Black Cherry' on a Hed Kandi Winter Chill album I bought last year. Haunted by the surrealistic quality of it and Allison's hypnotic vocals I advanced, ghost-like, to the record store and purchased this album. Scurrying straight home gripping tightly onto my prize, I hoped longingly that it would reveal many more hidden treasures like 'Black Cherry'... and I was not dissapointed. Listening to this album can only be compared to falling, Alice-like, down a rabbit hole and discovering a lush and twisted fairy tale at the bottom. This vibe is echoed by the albums sparkly fantabulous artwork, portraying Allison Goldfrapp as a pseudo-Red Riding Hood (complete with Dorothy Gayle ruby slippers) being both licked sensuously and ravaged brutally by wolves. I find this a marvelous visual encapsulation of the mood and sound of the album.
To actually describe the music is quite an enigma. The content is absoulutely diverse, all honey-dripped eroticism one minute (Black Cherry) and Rainbow-Brite 80's electronic synth pop the next (Tiptoe)- and all with a dash of fairydust thrown in. Lyrics such as:
* *Touch my garden rain clouds, mountains
sunshine all day long, sunrise, meadows
oceans, rainbows starlight all day long* *
and track names such as 'Crystalline Green', 'Deep Honey' and 'Hairy Trees' should prepare you for the lush, subversive and sometimes dark lyrical content of the songs. Use of electronic sound is manipulated beautifully along with the mesmeric quality of Allison's vocals to produce a complete stellar wave of uber-uber-uber deliciously cool music and sounds. Listen to it and envy the creativity!! I have booked tickets to see them live at Brixton Academy in Feb and I am simply trembling with anticipation of their highly theatrical live performance!!
((((::::((((::::Goldfapp Rock!!::::))))::::))))