Warning: This record is so damn uneven that it’s practically bipolar.
When Telepathe is on fire, they sound like a slightly more electronic TV On The Radio (no surprise since TVOTR’s Dave Sitek produced Dance Mother), but when they are off they are way off. On one hand you have the ethereal beauty of “So Fine,” “Can’t Stand It” and “Drugged,” but on the other there’s mindless, monotonous electro-pop like “Chrome’s On it,” “Devil’s Trident” and the brain-damagingly bad “Michael.” Half of Dance Mother combines grating monotonous vocals and with minimalist electronic bleeps and bloops, and it’s a failed version of Ladytron at best. The rest of the album is freakishly great in comparison. Melissa Livaudais’s voice, which is so annoying when she does her best sing-speak Miss Kitten impersonation, beautiful and haunting on the excellent “So Fine” and “Drugged,” Telepathe’s earlier recordings were much more noise-rock and shoegaze, and they excelled at it. If they could combine the best of their noise-rock roots and their new experimentation into electropop, then they might have something. Right now they only have half of something, and it’s hard to recommend half of a good thing.
James Elred
File under: The Trucks, TV On The Radio, Ladytron