With today’s electronic music, it is difficult to be neither overdone nor underdone. Overplay your hand and you’ve got the giant robotic cacophony that is the caricature of EDM. Underplay and it seems too precious artiste and minimalist. Goldfrapp have been threading that needle for years now, and continue with Silver Eye.
Single “Anymore” opens the album, and sets a fitting tone, pushing electronica that is neither too pushy nor a pushover. The slyer disco of the following “System Magic” even better does it, worming its way in. There are moments where synthesized effects are over-used (“Become the One”), and the atmospherics of the second half could use some diversity, but such songs as “Everything Is Never Enough” do the style right.
Goldfrapp occupy something of an in-between space in electronic music, quite successful but not stadium dubstep, a critical favorite of some years but not some obscure pioneer. Just like their music.
