Twisted Tenderness

From their inception, Electronic were always going to be dogged by high expectations. Let's face it, what act could possibly translate into music the point where three Manchester angles (The Smiths/Joy Division/New Order) trisected?

Furthermore, the reunion of that last band must leave Johnny Marr, a gifted sidekick who never quite found his post-Morrissey life-partner, swinging in the wind.

Still, Twisted Tenderness is an occasionally valuable marriage of contemporary technology and classic pop sensibilities. It might be simplistic to attribute the former to Bernard Sumner and the latter to Marr, but whatever the dynamic of the relationship, the proof is in tunes like 'Vivid', a classically sourpussed Sumner melody hitched to state of the art sounds. Also, this tune exhibits the best use of blues harmonica on a pop record since The The's 'Beaten Generation' (another Marr collaboration).

Mind you, that's as good as it gets, although tunes like 'Make It Happen' and 'Breakdown' are pretty formidable masterclasses in how to marry gloss with true grit. That said though, Sumner's airs are not necessarily graceful, and he's always been a limited singer. Strange then, that side two (if you'll pardon my archaic halving of the album), sees the duo changing tack considerably. Tracks like 'Late At Night', 'Prodigal Son' and 'When She's Gone' pretty much buy into rock orthodoxy - all Bonham-bastic drum sounds and four-on-the-floor backing tracks, topped off by Bernard's meditations on love and betrayal.

And therein lies the crux of the problem - sonic architects the pair might be, but they don't really have an awful lot to say. So, Twisted Tenderness is ultimately a fair-to-middling effort, destined to enjoy a short-term affair with the car stereo, then get relegated to the middle of the CD tower.