Cobra & Phases Group Play Voltage In The Milky Night : Stereolab : Review : Rolling Stone

Influential pop experimentalists Stereolab have an attitude problem: They never have quite enough. Their albums bask in their oddly toned zigzags, poignant harmonies, electronic pulses and precious drumming with a blank fondness. Live, they're a gas, but on record they make fellow U.K. progressives like Underworld and Massive Attack seem like sex maniacs. Cobra and Phases Group Play Voltage in the Milky Night, Stereolab's first recording in two years, opens with an intentionally stilted jazziness; Stereolab seem like they're pondering the existential basis of staccato with the intensity of someone leisurely getting dressed. Finally, six songs in, on "Infinity Girl," the music looks ups and steps out, recovering the fashionable post-rock charm of which guitarist Tim Gane and singer Laetitia Sadier are capable. The rest of the album sails and surprises, especially "Puncture in the Radax Permutation." Anchored by a steely little guitar triplet, the piano chords mimic synthesizer beats, the drums brush, the horns make nice, and a borderline-screechy sci-fi chorus crops up. Then the music tilts away into typically inscrutable orbit - but that's Stereolab's idea of a party. (RS 822)

JAMES HUNTER