A timeless collection which guided pop music to where it is now, wonderfully produced and suggestively oozing images of all night dancing followed by sex, the likes of "Ride a White Horse" and "Satin Chic" still thrill after the significant elapsed time.
A six-year silence since Goldfrapp’s last album, Silver Eye from 2017, and her debut solo release continues the album cycle of her band (folk project followed by hot disco action and so on), after the subdued offering of Silver Eye, The Love Invention has been sculpted with nights of abandon on the dancefloor in mind.
The tracks where she differentiates from her previous material are pleasant enough (the synth-drenched title track particularly), but the album excels when she just plays to the strengths that made Goldfrapp such an essential act. The space-electro of "In Electric Blue" is low paced and dramatic, 80’s Sophisti-Soul is referenced on the steamy "Hotel," the jabbing synths and bubbling arpeggios on "Fever" has her in wrapped in sumptuous bedsheets mode, whilst the jittery beats and elastic basslines on highlight "Subterfuge" looks back to her second album Black Cherry for influence.
The grip the disco genre has on Pop music has gotten tighter over the past few years. We've had the chardonnay-followed-by-tears disco of Sophie Ellis Bextor, the career rejuvenation of Kylie’s Disco, the empowering pop-disco of Dua Lipa and Jessie Ware, and in Roisin we trust. So, in that landscape it does feel like Alison Goldfrapp is chasing the pack a little, especially with Roisin Murphy’s 2020 album Roisin Machine being such a benchmark for what modern day disco could and should be. The Love Invention isn’t quite the crown grab it has the potential to be, despite her being on brilliant form as always.
