After spending years on the dancefloor with Black Cherry and Supernature, Goldfrapp take a breather with Seventh Tree. This is not Goldfrapp Unplugged, although acoustic guitars and strings waft in and out of the album effortlessly - if anything, Seventh Tree's electro hippie-chic is the duo's most polished and luxe work yet. Seventh Tree' was the fourth album by English duo Goldfrapp and was a move away from the glitterball disco-pop they had peddled previously. Kate Bush and Liz Fraser vocals, Prefab Sprout, Air and Cocteau Twins electronic wizardry but the great, truly great, thing about Goldfrapp is that they are more than just the sum of their influences.

Allison Goldfrapp and Will Gregory slow down the beats and break out the acoustic guitars on a set of songs that suggest chilling out in a field during a hazy, watercolor summer; this is music for after the party, not after-parties. So how could a group that's already established success with slow, lush ballads-- think 2000's "Pilots", 2003's "Forever", or 2005's "You Never Know"-- release an album filled with a whole bunch of uncompelling attempts at them? Supernature and Black Cherry were indebted to Add N to (X), a 90s trio also big on synthesisers, shagging and 70s pop. If a well-known pop artist alters their style-- especially if it deviates from a sound that made them a commercial success-- there's often this urge to label the musician as bored and impulsive, chasing new trends or jumping off bandwagons as if holding off stagnancy is their only motivation to test their creativity.The gatefold sleeve (not sure if the original pressing had a gatefold), is nice quality, rather than feeling like a pale imitation of the original design, which sometimes happens with reissues, both i terms of artwork and card quality, and with a very nice "wide-spine".

The album then slows down with a set of sadder, slower pieces that talk about loneliness and despair about broken relationships. The DVD contained music videos, behind-the-scenes footage and several live performances filmed at the De La Warr Pavilion in Bexhill-on-Sea in June 2008. Like the bulk of the album, there's a certain beauty in opener "Clowns", but it's an empty one-- more lullaby than pop song, it's symptomatic of what happens when you take all the grandeur out of big sweeping melodies.

BEST OF ALL, a foldout poster (and believe me this is every Goldfrapp fan's wet dream) of Allison herself, in white pagan robe, completely barefoot with her deliciously hot long legs exposed and dark eyeliner standing cross-stance on a tree with the head of the owl mask perched high above with a lake background. The look of the glamorous disco diva that appeared on Black Cherry and Supernature is replaced by a more natural but slightly less confident appearance. Bassist Jon Davie adopted the nom de punk John Thomas; whatever you think of their opportunism, you can't fault the dedication of a man so keen to keep his career alive he was willing to name himself after a euphemism for the penis. Recorded with longtime collaborator Will Gregory out in rural Somerset, Seventh Tree feels like an attempt to fuse the pagan folk of cult English horror classic The Wicker Man to a lush backdrop of woozy electronics and a restrained orchestral sweep reminiscent of '70s-era Serge Gainsbourg. With its sweeping strings Cologne Cerrone Houdini has a slight Emmanuel flavour - all soft-focus erotic suggestion - and Happiness and Some People are further proof of the duo's growing songwriting genius and pop nous.