When La Roux came to prominence in the late-00s with two shrill synthpop smashes – Bulletproof and In for the Kill – the duo were frequently discussed in terms of their nostalgia value. With their tinny, falsetto-driven, slightly wobbly electro – not to mention vocalist Elly Jackson’s gravity-defying quiff – it did seem a bit like the band were indulging in some 1980s new wave cosplay. Yet, funnily enough, those two tracks now feel headily redolent of the era they were made in. Not just thanks to their ubiquitous popularity, but because they chimed with the direction pop was taking at that time, being of a piece both with Lady Gaga’s dead-eyed, big-chorused anthems and the honking electro practised by indie acts such as MGMT and Empire of the Sun.
This commercially fruitful zeitgeist-adjacent direction didn’t last long.
After that initial outing, La Roux (now simply Jackson’s solo moniker) finally returned in 2014 with a warmer, gentler second album, Trouble in Paradise. And, despite another yawning gap between releases, Supervision very much picks up where that record’s clipped grooves and subtly discordant melodies left off. It’s a recipe which yields memorable but gratifyingly contrarian confections such as Automatic Driver, where a pleasingly portly synthline meets a flatly hypnotic chorus, and Do You Feel, a muted, maudlin disco number. Breakbeats shuffle behind melodies whose catchiness slowly creeps up on you. Synthetic, almost novelty-grade instrumentals are offset by Jackson’s nasal, slightly skew-whiff vocal. It’s all beautiful, but often obliquely so.
It would be remiss not to point out that La Roux’s work is still very reminiscent of 1980s pop. A serotonin-depleted Wham! seems to be a blueprint – closing ballad Gullible Fool is gorgeous, but channels George Michael so hard it might as well be wearing aviators and an untowardly deep v-neck. Yet, there’s no doubt Jackson is gradually carving out a left-of-centre niche, with a retro sound that is cleverly evocative and curiously idiosyncratic rather than just derivative.
This time, it really would be a shock if her backwards-glancing tunes captured the nation’s heart – but that doesn’t matter: if this record is anything to go by, the pop margins seem to suit La Roux even better than the mainstream.
