"Babelonia", by School of Seven Bells. The thing about School of Seven Bells is that, while they may have all the right looks, and all the right moves, and all the right influences (and two magnificent voices), what they don't have, at least yet, is the ability to write songs that are strong enough for them to stand out as themselves, rather than for their good "taste" or whatever. For now, they seem content to generate echoes, admittedly very tasty echoes, of, amongst others, My Bloody Valentine, Cocteau Twins, and This Mortal Coil.
Take "Babelonia". If you ignore the drum programming, which sounds like it has come from another decade entirely, the song is pure Stereolab. (Stereolab, of course, famously made a career out of sounding like their influences, but they had so many things to draw on that the sum of the parts amounted to a very large number.) Which, in the absence of any new Stereolab product, well, this song will just have to do. And it does. Quite nicely.
