Much as the blues were embraced by white boys 50 years ago, ponderous lyrics over ethereal keyboard sounds are no longer the province solely of British depressives with peculiar hair. On its fourth album, this Baltimore duo is nearly indistinguishable from Cocteau Twins and the like. Their achievement is to inject new life into what had been a dated form. A well-disguised guitar will occasionally jolt the reverie to rescue it from Enya territory, but sometimes not in time. As Victoria Legrand sings in “Irene,” “it’s a strange paradise,” this techno-dream pop as it emerges from the lassitude it engendered around 1989.
This article appears in May 31 – Jun 6, 2012.