Pitchfork

Victims of many a lazy finger-wag for their heavy Stereolab borrowings, Electrelane have spent almost a decade refining their thick-set guitar ballads without really gaining much ground. On their latest album, No Shouts, No Calls, the all-female group displays a production-free grittiness that makes it sound less of this era, but closely adjacent to it. It looks backward, disdainful of the current indie picture-- particularly England's, where buzzsaw guitars and post-Strokes poses remain bewilderingly en vogue.

It's a relief, then, that organ showcase "Tram 21" shows no ambition to transform the band's sound into something more immediate or trendy-- say, shiny production, domineering vocals, or an untested instrumental formula. Since 2004's dark and deeply affecting The Power Out, the group has abandoned French lyrics in favor of singing in English or just plain keeping their mouths shut-- 2005's Axes was largely instrumental. On No Shouts, No Calls, the Krautrock-esque sonics of the band's last album have been fused with The Power Out's flair for continental pop, but it's the guitars that sing loudest: Each of the album's tepidly sung but passionately orchestrated songs is a raucous, quietly impressive guitar overture with garnishes of organ and keyboard.

"In Berlin" blends four harmonies-- vocals, guitar, bass, and violin-- to craft a resolution-free dirge accompanied by nearly unintelligible lyrics. Indeed, on much of the album, the vocals work more as a separate instrument or additional melodic line than any sort of verbal communication. On "Between the Wolf and the Dog" the band is happy to revive its instrumental beginnings with a metal-inspired interlude, highly repetitive and stretched to epic length. It's one of the album's strongest tracks, defying structural logic with a long intro and a surprising, cheery chorus at odds with the song's frenetic, Fugazi-like sound. Ghostly vocals are a perfect addition to another torrential but hygienically precise jam session, "Five", but again, they serve as a tinselly bit of color, much as the strings, keyboard, or farfisa do on other tracks.

Oddly, a banjo makes an appearance on "Cut and Run", one glimmer of the band embracing new ideas. The group also embraces the cute chorus on "Between the Wolf and the Dog" and makes an entire beachy ballad of it: The guitars stay quiet; the dry, hollow vocals sound as if recorded in a closet; and punchy drums and tambourine obediently steer clear of the urgency displayed elsewhere. "The Lighthouse" is the most magical moment on this album. Its frantically circling keyboard arpeggio (the track repeats the same melody at both rapid and slow speeds) perfectly captures the band's energy, best displaying how this album-- and this group-- distinguishes itself in a stubbornly crowded field.