Seventh Tree

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.

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.

After a couple of listens it reveals itself as Goldfrapp's most subtle, affecting and rewarding album to date.

It is a welcome return home to a band that had been on quite the bender.

Gentle, calming, tender and affectionate, this is a sumptuous piece of work miles away from the stomp of their previous album and all the better for it.

Goldfrapp minus electroclash equals Seventh Tree.

Ultimately, Allison is a pleasure to listen to even in the space where she floats right through your head.

Some more uptempos would have been nice, but Seventh Tree still makes for good post-party chill-out music.

‘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.

Seventh Tree is a quiet triumph, as soothingly spaced out as falling asleep in the sun.

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.

The duo are too consistently subdued, and without their usual spectacle, Seventh Tree veers perilously close to dull.

With all the excitement and decadence drained out of the music and the voice, the trite themes stand out a bit more clearly.

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.