Ester [CD]

Some artists have a willful tendency to begin their albums with a track wholly at odds with the rest of their offerings. Sparklehorse, for example, came down with a case of the screaming emos at the start of the heart-melting Good Morning Spider, whilst JJ's Jj Nº 3 began a blissfully light-filled record with a moment of bleak darkness.

Give the opening track of Trailer Trash Tracys' debut longplayer a listen and one might expect them to be an unholy exercise in freeform psychedelic funktronica - a prospect sure to pique curiosity and turn stomachs in equal measure.

As it pans out, though, 'Ester' is actually a delightful run of mellow electronica and twanging guitar, topped off by echo-drenched laconic female vocals, a la Stereolab, Saint Etienne and the aforementioned JJ. Swoon and sway are the order of the day and they deliver in spades, the vocals luscious yet distant whilst the guitar accompaniment throbs gently along, reminiscent of Julee Cruise's 'Falling' - never more so than on stand-out track 'Candy Girl', which would not be out of place in Twin Peaks.

Whilst it gets a lot right, this is not a perfect album. The production is of the 'everything loud' school, which leaves precious little room for the tunes to breathe, whilst the songs themselves begin to sound a little samey after a while. Perhaps if they'd spread a little of the wanton creativity that is on show in the first track, the album as a whole would have benefited.

There is no doubt, though, that 'Ester' is an excellent debut which comes with a hearty recommendation to anyone with a soft spot for spaced-out indietronica. Just don't judge the album by the first track...

Fears already exist for the future of Trailer Trash Tracys. Sure, their debut LP Ester houses some choice tunes, but the majority of these were written a few years ago and the more modern remainder just doesn't carry the same weight ... but away with such negativity for now.

For, offering more than a glimmer of hope, the recent and Raveonettes-reminiscent "Dies In 55" bucks this trend, running quiet riot with twinkling arpeggios, sugary retro-futurist equipment and unsubtle machine-gun rips from a prominent electronic drum. So too do the compressed beat of "Starlatine", its otherworldly percussion and dreamy speaker-to-speaker shifts that suggest tripping out on Mazzy Star records.

Unfortunately, elsewhere, despite what must be a conscious effort to diversify, certain experiments fall flat. Lacking cohesion, "Engelhardt's Arizona" is an overlong exercise in disparately skewed synth and aggressive drum chirrups that flail wildly in the mix rather than with real impact. Later, "Black Circle" suffers from the same problem while its bubbling bassline feels kind of nauseous, but not in a good way.

Another issue is that some tracks seem little more than badly recalled echoes of Ester's better material - see the beleaguered "Los Angered" for proof. And then there's the unnecessarily re-recorded version of the formerly striking "Strangling Good Guys". As a result, this slightly blunted edit has lost some of its crumpled shoegaze thrust, but luckily not so much as to render the track entirely impotent.

Happily, Ester mostly manages to bury its minuses however, as the shadow cast by its high points forgives that which is consigned to the shade. As such, and just as it has for the past couple of years, that mesmeric bassline so evocative of David Lynch's Twin Peaks hums perfectly here beneath Suzanna Aztoria's beautiful vocal in "You Wish You Were Red" - a ponderous account that is otherwise high on Cocteau Twins intangibility, retro rock `n' roll, warping pedal effects and an almost-C86 jangle.

Equally impressive, "Candy Girl" successfully blends those ever-so-sleek bass interjections with a dancing guitar riff, girl-group pop and lashings of nostalgic shoegaze noise. Aztoria too here engages energetically with the track, rushing upwards and falling back as gracefully as a bird in flight.

An album of two halves then, Ester is neither complete success nor total write-off. Benefit of the doubt prevails for now, but Trailer Trash Tracys are going to have to iron some consistency into any future material fast if they aren't soon to be consigned to landfill - and that's an effort surely worth making as when they find a winning formula they're really much better than their much-mocked band name may suggest.

Advised downloads: "You Wish You Were Red" and "Candy Girl".

Most of this album is like the best bits of The xx and Beach House with a much needed hard drum machine edge. What's not to like about that? Check out Strangling Good Guys and You Wish You Were Red for some highlights.