Where many eager to incorporate club music into pop end up merging both, Anglo-American couple Penelope Trappes and Stephen Hindman often switch from one to the other, making Autonomy an uneasy, intense experience.
With its throbbing bass, echoing piano and nocturnal imagery, Coercion sounds like late-80s Depeche Mode, with the simplicity of its unsettling synth melody worthy of John Carpenter, while Infinity begins like Underworld, then adopts The Prodigy’s ferocity, before Trappes’ vocal climaxes as if she’s joined Suicide.
Nonetheless, if Electric Light threatens to explore the hectic, dancefloor-friendly sounds of Soulwax’s NY Excuse, it ends with an elegant sophistication that recalls Roxy Music, and All The Queens makes a Chariots Of Fire circuit round a grim dungeon, before emerging into daylight.
7/10
Wyndham Wallace