Sonic luxury has been the only constant in the duo's sound, from Felt Mountain's darkly lavish soundscapes to Black Cherry and Supernature's decadent dance hits, and there's plenty of it here, too. Oh my GODDESS, this poster is proof that Allison Goldfrapp is not just a musical genius but the woman I come home to worship at my alter.

Supernature and Black Cherry were indebted to Add N to (X), a 90s trio also big on synthesisers, shagging and 70s pop. A curious title, possibly hinting that just as the seventh tidal wave offers a stronger current, the seventh tree will signify a similar break from normality.

The album artwork depicted Goldfrapp dressed as a clown and hugging a tree, as well as Gregory dressed as an owl. But with all the excitement and decadence drained out of the music and the voice, the trite themes stand out a bit more clearly: you can be happy if you give money to people who promise to make your life better ("Happiness"); birds have wings and are free ("Little Bird"). If a well-known pop artist alters their style-- especially if it deviates from a sound that made them a commercial success-- there's often this urge to label the musician as bored and impulsive, chasing new trends or jumping off bandwagons as if holding off stagnancy is their only motivation to test their creativity. It's also a move that few who came in during the last album would've imagined, but in the grand scheme of all things Goldfrapp, it makes perfect sense.

As you might expect from a woman who chose to illustrate her conjunction of electronic music and eroticism by playing a synthesiser with her private parts, Seventh Tree is not overly coyin signposting its new approach.The year of 1977 was tough for Gryphon, a medievally inclined prog rock band heavy on the crumhorn and the hey-nonny-no. It was certified gold by the British Phonographic Industry (BPI) within four days of release, on 29 February 2008. After the glorious synthpop plus of Supernature, Alison and Will continue to mine those spinal shivers with this emotive pastoral perfection.

Some of the tracks launch themselves into hippy psychedelia and here and there it sounds like some of the instruments are being looped backwards ( "Little Bird" ). With two hard-to-top electro-pop albums under their belts-- 2003's Black Cherry and 2005's Supernature-- it's safe to assume that Alison Goldfrapp and Will Gregory are perfectly happy with getting some closure on what they've accomplished in the last few years and are moving on to something else out of a feeling more substantial than impatience. All of Gregory's codeine melodies would be a lot more salvageable, however, if Alison undercut it with the trademark strengths of her voice.Avoiding the glammy dance-pop of the duo's previous two albums is a bit of a risk, since Goldfrapp could probably make endless variations on Ooh La La and still have plenty of fans. It's a blissed out trippy LP of dreamy songs to listen to on the beach or floating on a boat down the river while smoking a doobie and watching the clouds in the sky drift by. Pitchfork may earn a portion of sales from products that are purchased through our site as part of our Affiliate Partnerships with retailers.

At its best-- the desolation of "Cologne Cerrone Houdini" and "Some People", which inject the ambience with a much-needed eeriness-- this stuff's fairly soothing; at its worst it evokes that old "Mystery Science Theater 3000" bit about the two-note chords of New Age music: "Put your finger down here. 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. To calculate the overall star rating and percentage breakdown by star, we don’t use a simple average. Recorded with longtime collaborator Will Gregory out in rural Somerset, Seventh Tree feels like an attempt to fuse the pagan folk of cult English horror classic The Wicker Man to a lush backdrop of woozy electronics and a restrained orchestral sweep reminiscent of '70s-era Serge Gainsbourg. 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.This ambience is often 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. It's just too bad most listeners won't be able to say the same about their own reactions to this new one.