I thought I would like this album - and even if I didn't go overboard for it, I was looking forward to Jake Shears' (Scissor Sisters - here using his real name Sellards) contribution - but even that did not move me positively. I also thought there might be something secret lurking on the CD, despite its being marked as 'not designed to play in computers'. Alas, wrong again. All the '18' stuff on the DVD-shape packaging is rather tantalising - what is the person on the CD cover putting into his/her mouth? - but rather like the whole album turns out to be a damp squib.

When most of the fourteen tracks (mostly co-written and recorded by Philip Larsen and Chris Smith - Manhattan Clique) begin they throw out the musty smell that hits a room when you switch on an electric heater - familiar, slightly unpleasant but a sign that something is at least working. This may appeal to those conditioned to electro-funk or predisposed to the mindless repetition of rather vacuous words, but it leaves something to be desired.

We are moving into a post-Post-modern world, and so it is more difficult than ever to assess the achievements of painters, sculptors, music-makers, because the traditional standards of taste have been rejected as subjective and now there is no longer any objective validation. Still, we have to try to live up to our responsibilities (as the most privileged society in the history of human endeavour) by trying to make some sense of what we see and hear.

Aurally this album is about as exciting as a pacemaker - the life-giving riffs are few and far between, but you notice when a track stops. Erasure front man Andy Bell's voice is comfortable, but the lyrics are undeveloped or - worse - utterly banal. ("Just stay here beside me for the rest of my life.") He sings, "I don't know what you're looking for..." - answer: melody, song, invention, imagination...

When they try to condition us with an ultimately jejune electro-thump, thump, thump - insistently proclaiming there is no other imaginable beat (just as there is no place to be other than in the reigning club/disco, and nothing better to do than blend in with the clones) - we have every right to challenge them. And to be honest, I thought New York had moved on. Title track Electric Blue contains references to "supernature" and "dominatrix baby" and sounds remarkably like Alison Goldfrapp's recent breakthrough album - homage, or just a sign that this is the sound of the moment?

So, this CD is easy listening; I like it, I guess. There are one or two lines that stand out memorably, such as, "We only have one life / This is not a rehearsal" (from Love Oneself). I shall probably continue to play this CD because there is something in it - a wistfulness - that grabs me, but it does not move me to get up and dance, nor does it command undivided attention. But it was never intended to do that.

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Mercury Prize 2009 nominees