Goldfrapp
Black Cherry (Mute 9206)

One of the best pop releases of 2003, Black Cherry not only does it mark an ass-kicking makeover for a good cult band, but song for song, it towers above most of its peers and/or rivals. It's an album that recasts reality as though Siouxsie & the Banshees' "Kiss Them For Me" was the biggest hit of the '90s, dowsing you in lilac perfume and tying you down with satin wristbands.

The sound is dirty, aggressive electroshit with pulsasting, pounding beats, superdark vibrator bass, twiddly synth lines straight out of early Human League, and the sexy-Siouxsie vocals of Alison Goldfrapp, cooing and pleading, all of it wrapping around you like a sensual ticklestick. What's a sensual ticklestick? I have no idea, I'm just saying what it sounds like.

The songs are promiscuous teenage-nymph granddaughters to Donna Summer's early stuff, but utterly of-the-moment, from the strutty, slutty opener "Crystalline Green" to the MDMA-fueled "Train," to the whispersoft earkiss of "Deep Honey," to the straight-up fuck-me-pumps of "Twist," to the head-rattling, up-against-the-bedroom-door undercurrent of "Strict Machine," to the woozy all-boundaries-gone closing moments of "Slippage." Am I horny? I am now!

In between the aggressive sexsounds are tender, loving, missionary-style interludes sort of like Cocteau Twins meeting Sade at a very private sex club for some disorienting multi-partner waterbed action. A couple of tracks slip away like hazy late-night memories, but they're always there to be rekindled with another listen, like grainy night-vision homemade porn.

Initially hearing this record, I was surprised by Goldfrapp (previously much more subdued and sort of clichéd chillout shit) taking such an audacious step forward, and impressed by their creation of the definitive celebretory retro-electro document. I didn't expect, though, to find myself returning to it again and again, like a helplessly aroused character in a Zalman King movie, going back for more blissful humiliation from the baddest bitch in town.

It's some kind of classic, irresistable to your body even if your brain wants to analyze it as being too "obvious" or blatant. It means business. It takes prisoners. It leaves you in the morning, candlewax-scarred, depleted, hungover, reeking of pussy … smirking, smiling, shaking your head, never to find true clarity on what exactly went down last night.

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Review by Thomas Long-and-Strong