Because Add N to X use synthesizers, pontificate about synthesizers and give birth to them on their CD covers, they've been heralded as augurs of a humanity-deprived future. But in their own way, they're as retro as Lenny Kravitz: The London trio's debut album, On the Wires of Our Nerves, is rooted in Seventies futurism and Eighties technopop, drawing on Kraftwerk, Devo and the Normal in both music and concept.

Regardless of whether they're looking forward or backward, though, Ann Shendon, Barry Smith and Steve Claydon pump up a diabolical rush of keyboard-fueled adrenalin. The most memorable songs aren't the ones on which electronics rule supreme, but rather the ones on which synthesizers are violently hurled against a human presence. When vocals get distorted by a vocoder ("Murmur One"), or when the wild drumming of guest Rob Allum – who usually toils with the sedate High Llamas – overpowers the keyboards' wails ("The Black Regent," "Sir Ape"), the record cooks like there is, indeed, no tomorrow. Anchored in twenty-year-old imagery and goofily stylish, Add N to X aren't as alarming as they think they are – today we know that Bill Gates is scarier than HAL from 2001: A Space Odyssey. But On the Wires of Our Nerves succeeds through its wide-eyed enjoyment of analog gurgles, burps and sputters. (RS 789)

ELISABETH VINCENTELLI