Review of Ace Of Hz Single by Ladytron
As a tease to whet your appetite for the main event, the retrospective album 'Best Of 00-10' Ladytron are releasing a new single 'Ace Of Hz'. The track serves both as a stab in the arm to those who may have temporarily forgotten the bands worth but also as an example to those who have been forged in their wake but who have failed to take up their mantle.
Ace Of Hz is by no means Ladytron's finest work but it is still staggeringly better than anything conjured up by their growing number of inferior imitators. What astonishes me sometimes is how such energized, spirited, full blown, driven..........and above all enjoyable music is not loved, adored, feted, cherished or even just appreciated by so many more people. Why aren't Ladytron as big as say The Chemical Brothers, Leftfield or even Underworld?
In a back catalogue of four fine albums and countless re mixes, that have both influenced and absorbed the culture in which they work, Ladytron have every justification for feeling a little short changed. (If you're measuring everything by commercial success that is) Forming towards the death rattle of Brit-Pop through Liverpool, via Israel and Bulgaria, and choosing to use synth heavy bass beats like an electro version of an Indie Guitar band with a pop bias may have not sounded like a winner on paper. However, the results are nearly all a testament to their singular vision; Ace of Hz being the latest in a long line of pedigree releases.
As if to pay homage to, and give yet more grandeur and ceremony to the release, some big hitters have been brought in to tweak, twiddle and contrive different takes on the album or radio edit. Punks Jump Up (Equal parts Gay, Balearic and Club Tropicana), Tiesto (Pan Pipes before Boney-M meets Hi-Energy@Heaven) and NYCPartyinfo (Deconstructed party pooper). All rather unnecessary but great nonetheless.
The 29th March sees the release of their 'Best Of' before the bands fifth album proper 'Gravity The Seducer' is released some time this summer. Maybe by then they will be bigger than GaGa!
Andrew Lockwood.
