The Golden Filter - Voluspa Album Review

In antediluvian times, there was MGMT or Natasha Khan. But as with any marketable, stylized area of music, it was inevitable that other folks would want a slice of the pie. But then of course, you have the people who plonk on a headdress and some affectations and think they'll sell a bucket load. I'm looking at you, Empire of the Sun.

As for The Golden Filter, the name may ring distant bells - they've made their living out of producing, up until now. Lending expertise to the likes of Little Boots, the aforementioned Empire of the Sun and even Cut Copy, Golden Filter have a good idea about the landscape of electropop. But as Miike Snow, Timbaland and others have found out when they stepped out from behind the mixing desk, it's actually not as easy joining the dots to make a cohesive, interesting album.

Penelope Trappe's vocals are seductive and cooing, but the topics are clumsy pastiche: Follow the golden fox through the golden door, take the golden key, put down the golden heart/ Through The Golden Filter, see the golden light.' Now unless there was a tax on using too many different words, that's rather unimaginative.

The music, though affable in places, recalls The Knife and Goldfrapp a little too readily. The ethereal wispy synths, the plodding beat - through the whole album, you're left with this strange feeling of d'j. vu. And that's why, although V"luspÿ is by no means offensive, its vagueness falls a little flat and lacking the vibrancy borne out of experimentation, whilst they seem comfortable dealing with others' creativity, The Golden Filter seem unable to grasp their own.

Natalie Kaye