Liverpudlian electronic pop band Ladytron deliver their 5th album. The group has a large cult following, and have somehow survived well past the tail-end of the electroclash movement they were initially tagged to.

The cover art looks like a sophisticated version of Kraftwerk's autobahn, but that's where all comparisons end - Ladytron blanket their electro-pop structures with warm enveloping synths, bass and guitar - they're anything but cold and mechanical, despite the use of rather limited (in range), automated female vocals.

Slightly shifting from album to album, Gravity The Seducer carpets Ladytron's melodious synth-charged electro-pop ethics with a blanket of atmoshperic effects, giving the overall production a hazy shoegaze sheen. Suffocating the production, the instruments tend to clump together and become indivisible.

Beneath the morass remains some decent cold storage electronic pop, notably the insistent chime of White Elephant, euphoric Mirage and Moon Palace - by far the stand out track, with its stomping, off-kilter piano and striding, authoritative hooks.

Otherwise, Gravity The Seducer is a rather indistinct record; apart from Moon Palace the vocals are completely levelled throughout, the tempo of almost every track is identical and the sounds used are quite samey, with thickly wedged guitar chords struggling to ignite the the album's myriad of syncopated keyboard tones and morosely insistent drum beats.

Sounding rather like Goldfrapp's ugly little sister, Ladytron might have borrowed the curling tongs for the night but the hairdo simply doesn't have the same appeal. That's not to say Gravity The Seducer is a bad album, it has its moments, but more often than not slopes into an erratic, self-absorbed paradigm that is neither nostalgic, forward-thinking, contemporary or particularly engrossing.

Living in the shadow of a thousand other household electronic pop acts over the past 40 years, Ladytron may be worthy of the odd memorable song or minor pop hit, but on this evidence struggle to seduce much further than that.