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.
