While a Beck fan, who has worked with Charlotte in the past; and also a fan of Gainsbourg as an actress; this will be my first foray in to her music. Although I'm not generally the biggest fan of indie-electronic music led by women, my curiosity got the better of me. (I did just watch Melancholia...)The Depeche Mode influence is obvious. There is an effort here to bring the dark dance vibe. The addition of Beck, I'm going to assume, adds the additional flavor of something more fun; something more funk. Without him, I'll bet that Charlotte would just have chosen straight-ahead dance beats to carry her songs forward. And that may have been enough for many people. But I appreciate the playful poppiness of "Terrible Angels" and echo-y drums of "All The Rain".
Outside of Beck, Charlotte's performance is largely unnoticeable. Her voice is monotoned in the upper register and muddled by enough echo to make her cloudy/smokey... veiled. Her personality does not come through. Maybe I'm being prejudiced against a singer/not-songwriter, but lines as interesting as "into the eye of a needle you can fly like a mosquito and turn into a million different people" should be able to be sold without too much effort. This becomes especially evident in a couple of non-Beck tracks, "Anna" and "Out Of Touch", which seem electronically lifeless.
The standout, though, is a tremendously written track by Conor O'Brien, aka Villagers, who I am a big fan of. I can hear his voice when Charlotte sings his "Memoir" as if it were her own. If Beck's not going to carry you with jams, she should have been doing this with the rest of the tracks. Something more organic. The album comes with a live disc which shows a much more dynamic performer playing livelier indie-pop tunes. Decent, but not what I'm basing this review on. (2.5 of 5 stars)
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