Album of the Week: Stereolab Instant Holograms on Metal Film

Staff Review

Theyre back! After a 15-year hiatus, Stereolab return with Instant Holograms on Metal Film, a brand-new album from the beloved avant-pop pioneers. Unsurprisingly, anticipation has been sky-high and were happy to report its an absolute gem.

If youre new to the groop (yes, thats how they spell it), Stereolab emerged in the early 90s with a string of groundbreaking albums that blended indie rock, post-punk, krautrock, art-pop, and electronica. Their catalogue is packed with classics, Mars Audiac Quintet, Emperor Tomato Ketchup, Dots and Loops, are each essential listening. While their sound stood apart from Britpops swaggering mainstream, they shared sonic space with fellow outsiders like Broadcast, Spiritualized, Pram, and Yo La Tengo, carving out a legacy thats only grown richer with time.

Since their 2010 hiatus, founding guitarist Tim Gane explored modular synth terrains with Cavern of Anti-Matter, while vocalist Ltitia Sadier released a string of acclaimed solo albums. Now reunited, Stereolab sound well, just like themselves. Instant Holograms on Metal Film doesnt reinvent the wheel, but it spins with familiar, irresistible charm.

Opening track Mystical Plosives sets the mood with vintage synth arpeggios, its gentle, warm, and unmistakably Stereolab. Lead single Aerial Troubles is pure pop bliss, evoking the bounce and brightness of Ping Pong or Cybeles Reverie, complete with disco-tinged rhythms and Sadiers ever-heavenly vocals.

Though the band has always displayed an affinity with left-wing politics, this may be their most overtly political record to date. Lyrically, its a sobering reflection on todays chaos, climate, capitalism, collapse. Lyrical couplets that include assigned trajectory, avid fear of death, and the numbing is not working anymore cut deep in Aerial Troubles. Musically, however, the album grooves. Tracks like Melodie Is a Wound, Vermona F Transistor, and Esemplastic Creeping Eruption pulse with motorik rhythms and analog warmth. These songs twist and evolve in unexpected directions, yet remain danceable, accessible, and endlessly enjoyable.

There are echoes of Emperor Tomato Ketchup, Mars Audiac Quintet, and Switched On Volume 2 throughout, with brief nods to the jazz, ambient, and electronic explorations of Dots and Loops and Cobra and Phases....Two standouts come close to end of the album: If You Remember I Forgot How to Dream Pt. 1 pulses with retro-futurist funk, wah-wah guitar, and brass flourishes. Its companion, Pt. 2, offers a dreamier, more introspective finale replete with drifting guitar, bubbling drum loops, and lush, atmospheric synths.

Instant Holograms on Metal Film proves that Stereolab remain singular, visionary, and very much essential.