Air
10,000 Hz Legend
Astralwerks

Air's third album, 10,000 Hz Legend should have been where everything came together. Its debut, Moon Safari, was a top-notch bubblegum space-pop classic, hampered only by the band's poor choice of lite-rock vocalist Beth Hirsch to sing the songs in the 4 and 7 slots ó a decision that makes the album sound a lot more fragmented that it actually is.

The score for The Virgin Suicides, on the other hand, was gloom-and-doom brilliance, combining the band's slinky '60s-lounge cool with stripped-down, Dark Side of the Moon production. The score showed off the band's expanded sonic palette, while also demonstrating that the duo of Jean-Benoit Dunckel and Nicolas Godin knew when to throw out what didn't work. Except for the first track, married perfectly to the smooth crooning of Gordon Tracks, the album was entirely instrumental, and towered over Moon Safari as the band's best achievement.

10,000 Hz Legend launches itself with a beat straight from Aphex Twin and the riff from "Cemetary Party" — The Virgin Suicide score's most Pink Floyd-like track — shifted to another key. After two albums and several singles of slinky, floating lounge rock, it's jolting to hear what can best be described as mediocre, overproduced prog and post-prog rock.

Up next, "How Does This Make You Feel" borrows the computerized voice from Radiohead's "Fitter, Happier" and, in one of the lamest pop twists in recent memory, gives him a computerized female companion. "Radio #1," the first single from the album, is Air's attempt to fuse overblown '70s rock with Prince-like funk. It hits the wall and slides painfully to the floor.

Air's fetish for electronically filtered vocals is played out to its ridiculous extreme on 10,000 Hz Legend, with virtually every song sending listeners back to the days of "Mr. Roboto."

It isn't until the Beck-sung "The Vagabond" that Air really gets going, and when the band does, it isn't its own doing. Beck flat-out hijacks the song. With its handclaps, harmonica and, well, lack of any Air-like qualities at all, it's as if someone's gotten Beck in our Air. Though Beck fans weary of this weak, overblown album may very well insist the opposite is true.

Which isn't to say the rest of the album is as rough as its rocky beginning. The Beck-Air synergy works much better on "Don't Be Light," which falls nearly at the end of the album and features some great guitar work that pushes the band forward while not tampering too much with its sound.

"Lucky and Unlucky" and "People in the City" are both terrific. The former shows that on its third album, Air may have finally found its female vocalist in Lisa Papinau, while the latter is so catchy it's all too likely it'll show up in some kind of urban-hipster-driving ad somewhere. Still, it's hard not to wonder how much better "People" would be without the cheesy voice spelling out "P-E-O-P-L-E-C-I-T-Y" when a deadpan human voice would have sounded much better.

That, more than anything, seems to be the biggest problem plaguing 10,000 Hz Legend. Air seems to have lost its sense of what works and what doesn't. It may be because this is Godin and Dunckel's first album mixed by someone other than Stephane Briat, or it may just be reality catching up to a band who, while being incredibly good, has also been overly hyped.

— Eric Wittmershaus (ericw at flakmag dot com)