18 years after their last conventional album, ‘Electric Café’, Kraftwerk finally return with some brand new material. Well, to be honest, not all of it’s brand new; rather like 1991’s ‘The Mix’ the Kraut synth kings have spent half of ‘Tour De France Soundtracks’ remixing old material. Tracks 1-5 of this 12-track album produce a lengthy and it has to be said, dour, clubby version of their famous ‘Tour De France’ single, whilst the closing track is the original itself.

Therefore, with half of the album disappointingly wiped out, there remain only 6 brand new Kraftwerk tracks on offer. Schneider & Hutter (Bartos & Flur having disappointingly, but unsurprisingly left) have managed to somewhat reproduce Kraftwerk’s ultra-clean production and uncomplicated melodic sensibilities; when you hear Kraftwerk, you can be under no illusions as to who it is, their scent is that strong.

However, little of Tour De France Soundtracks is comparable to anything on their previous albums of 20-30 years ago. The slow, pedestrian nature of Kraftwerk’s production-style is a long way behind the exciting advancements electronic music has made over the decades, and only ‘Elektro Kardiogramm’ has that perfect blend of dry humour and style that we have come to cherish about them.

Whilst it cannot be doubted that Kraftwerk are the all-conquering legends of electronic music, and are likely the single most influential act in the history of music (practically everything we hear today derives from their offspring), I don’t see why that should divorce them from critical analysis. Tour De France Soundtracks gives you all the clues you need to know about why it has taken Kraftwerk so long to write another album. My suggestion is that they fell out of love with music long ago and needed some money.

Maybe that sounds a little harsh, but it’s a lot kinder than the only other possible alternative, that Kraftwerk are now incapable of rolling out anything other than a below par reminder of what they used to be. I see no desire here to create something new and exciting for the 21st century, the spark is gone and I don’t expect it to be re-ignited. Although neither do I think it needs to be, after all, what Kraftwerk got to prove to anyone?