Those Liverpudlian pioneers of glacial pop, Ladytron. follow up their near-hit ‘Seventeen’ (the one with the Slavic schoolgirl video) with another ode to teen iconography.
‘Blue Jeans’ has a catchy chorus and breathy Francophone vocals which speak of sultry, wind-kissed hair-swaying and a mouth kissing the piquant smoke of softly-puffed Gauloises.
Despite their professed admiration for Visage, The Human League and others, the only relevant comparisons (bar the haircuts) seem to be their similarly tinny sound quality. Such minor quibbles aside, ‘Blue Jeans’ overflows with the band's characteristicly delicious sonic squall and squelching synth work.
It may not have the gloriously dark subject matter of ‘Seventeen’ and that song's acerbic lifestyle commentary - “they only want you when you’re seventeen, when you’re twenty-one, you’re no fun” - but relatively few groups are capable of consistently mining such quality seams throughout their careers.
‘Blue Jeans’, then, is a worthy - if slightly less slinky - return for the band.
-
6Chris Hilliard's Score