Goldfrapp

Starbucks, your parents, and people who make car commercials will lap up the new direction Goldfrapp takes on its fourth album. The British electronic dance duo has traded its kinda-cheesy club jams for a more lush and sensual sound, recalling ambience-loving Frenchmen Air at times. Alison Goldfrapp's voice is well suited to the switch, rifling through a Victoria's Secret-stuffed closet of moods in the process: sultry in the electro-folky "A&E," playful in the psych-poppy "Happiness," and sexy in the orchestral "Cologne Cerrone Houdini." Goldfrapp reinvents itself throughout the CD, slowing down tempos and willingly revealing traces of humanity. While earlier albums came off a bit sterile, Seventh Tree's layered melodies subtly and captivatingly make a sweeping reintroduction.