It’s clear the British electronic trio’s second LP was a labour of knob-twiddling love. Awash in ambient detailing, these unhurried songs blend Kraftwerk’s robot-arise rhythms with Boards of Canada’s analogue wonkiness and Animal Collective’s micro-crescendos. James Buttery’s high and occasionally Lennon-esque vocals are breathy and mechanised, working better when treated as another input to process – as on the excellent, off-kilter puppet dance ‘Armonica’ – than when he takes a lyrical approach, as on the oversweet ‘A Day’s Pay for a Day’s Work’.
Stylistically cohesive and (a little too studiously) adventurous, the main problem here is that, ultimately, the songs don’t take you anywhere, mapped or unmapped, or express anything decipherable, a sensation verified (probably not deliberately) by the record’s title.
[rating: 3]
