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It's clear that Goldfrapp doesn't miss the style the pair perfected on their last two albums, nor should they--this is some of their most varied, balanced, and satisfying work.
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Seventh Tree is as deliciously subversive, and in some cases more so, as the duo's past work.
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Will Gregory’s sparkling webs of acoustic guitar, synth and strings allow the more slender melodies to slide into vaporous prettiness, but Goldfrapp’s voice remains extraordinary, as witchily sensual as Kate Bush’s, as otherworldly as a theremin.
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What keeps Seventh Tree from lapsing into music for looming by is Goldfrapp and Gregory's inventive instrumentation, which harvests the warmth of electronic pop and marries it organically to acoustic instruments.
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Goldfrapp have shed the sex-Moroder-robot-Bolan-fuck-disco like a used condom and re-tooled themselves as a whimsical psychedelia and pastoral folk outfit for the disappointing Seventh Tree.
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What Seventh Tree actually does - successfully - is tap into a very English spirit of eccentricity, taking the mellow floatiness of Goldfrapp's earliest work and imbuing it with a dash of Hammer horror and the aroma of country meadows.
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Seventh Tree, though in some respects an organic redrafting of the autoerotic Goldfrapp template, picks up where Supernature left off in its setting of the controls for the heart of the mainstream, and misses badly the slickly subversive tone that lifted the band from the realms of coffee table mediocrity.
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It's a very sleepy listen--though often a vey lovely one. [29 Feb 2008, p.61]
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Seventh Tree is the inevitable comedown, a pastoral holiday that trades glittery hedonism for quiet contemplation.
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Fans of Beth Orton and the French group Air will find much to swoon to throughout Seventh Tree.
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Seventh Tree is a moody, understated gem. A finer hangover record will be hard to come by in 2008.
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MojoA lush and trippy affair with shades of Edward Lear-like surrealism and John Winston Lennon amid strawberry Fields. [Mar 2008, p.103]
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After a couple of listens it reveals itself as Goldfrapp's most subtle, affecting and rewarding album to date.
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Seventh Tree is bound to ruffle a few electro-feathered fans, but there’s no denying it’s a venture that sets the pair into new experimental territory.
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Ultimately, Allison is a pleasure to listen to even in the space where she floats right through your head.
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A must for anyone still heavily rotating Moon Safari.
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Goldfrapp and Gregory have made an album as hummably lovely as it is knowingly referencing of a certain tradition of neo-psychedelic English whimsy.
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But with all the excitement and decadence drained out of the music and the voice, the trite themes stand out a bit more clearly.
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It might be a quieter and more introspective disc than we’d been expecting, but this is still a quintessential Goldfrapp album with Gregory’s arrangements brilliantly underscoring the inimitable vocal versatility of his female foil.
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Seventh Tree ultimately may have club-happy "Supernature" devotees shaking their heads, but for those of us who cherish all things weird and wonderful in the land of Goldfrapp, it is a welcome (and much-needed) return to form.
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Q MagazineThe results are psychedelic, frequently surreal and occasionally brilliant. [Mar 2008, p.99]
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Some more uptempos would have been nice, but Seventh Tree still makes for good post-party chill- out music.
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Seventh Tree is most compelling for the way in which the band's regained austerity and naturalism contrasts with their more recent hedonism.
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The duo are too consistently subdued, and without their usual spectacle, Seventh Tree veers perilously close to dull. [Mar 2008, p.102]
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From the first minute till the last, this is enthralling, invigorating stuff, and because of that it's comfortably the duo's best album yet.
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The disc is buoyed by an underlying pop sensibility, epitomized by the bubbly 'A&E' and 'Caravan Girl.'
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Seventh Tree represents a dramatic rethink: out go the stomping glitter beats and whip-crack synthesisers, in comes "psychedelic folk."
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It is a welcome return home to a band that had been on quite the bender.
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It’s a brave, bonkers, often beautiful, sometimes haunting and occasionally ridiculous album.
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Under The RadarGoldfrapp minus electroclash equals Seventh Tree. [Winter 2008, p.82]
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Each track on Seventh Tree is a picture that stands alone, but in its entirety the record works as a landscape decorated with guitars and pianos spread over hills of upbeat drums as strings and woodwinds line the sky in the background.
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This whole thing sounds great, though: rue, clenched fists, and closed eyes mixed at an arena pitch.
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 59 out of 70
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Mixed: 7 out of 70
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Negative: 4 out of 70
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Dec 8, 2013
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Aug 10, 2011
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Nov 3, 2010