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- Summary: With Stereolab on hiatus, Laetitia Sadier returns to release her first solo album.
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- Record Label: Drag City
- Genre(s): Pop/Rock, Alternative/Indie Rock, Alternative Pop/Rock, Indie Rock, Indie Electronic, Indie Pop, Dream Pop, Post-Rock, Experimental Rock, Ambient Pop
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Score distribution:
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Positive: 8 out of 13
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Mixed: 5 out of 13
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Negative: 0 out of 13
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The Trip feels like an expansion into new territory. Without Gane and his spacey-cool affectations, Sadier is free to revel in warm, rich balladry.
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Where Stereolab's songwriting was tangential and detached, with lyrics arranged around the melody, Sadier's solo work is deeply reflective, her words at center stage.
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The Trip is casual, low-stakes pop that is easy to live with.
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The WireHer voice remains a beguiling instrument, but there's a sense that the attempt to ditch the kitsch and connect more directly is compromising the originality of her vision. [Oct 2010, p.60]
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With The Trip, she's split the difference, crafting a modestly arranged work that showcases a variety of strengths we already knew she had.
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There is definitely some promise in Laetitia Sadier's solo work, but the material here feels more like rough sketches than finished product. That said, if you were a Stereolab fan and have withdrawal symptons, this will definitely satisfy your curiosities.
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If you want to hear this sort of thing done properly, you'll find happiness in the more sedate moments of the peerless Saint Etienne, but there's little to recommend The Trip. It's not much more than a Christmas bauble: shiny and polished on the surface, but with little of substance on the inside.