AMG Review of Best of 00 - 10

Heather Phares
All Music Guide

During the 2000s, Ladytron carved out an intriguing niche for themselves in the electro-pop world, forging innocent indie pop melodies with electronics that were by turns nostalgic and menacingly futuristic. This straightforwardly named double-disc set presents nearly every standout moment from the band’s albums in a thoughtful mix that lets each album’s sound come through while also contributing to the overall flow. Because Ladytron's approach is so distinctive -- due in part to the complementary styles of vocalists Helen Marnie and Mira Aroyo, and in part to the way the band incorporated everything from shoegaze to darkwave to chiptune -- the band’s earliest work sounds as fresh as its later music. 604 tracks like “Discotraxx,” “Another Breakfast with You,” and “The Way That I Found You” spotlight Marnie's tremulous voice and insightful lyrics, while Light & Magic's “Seventeen,” “Blue Jeans,” and “Evil” reflect Ladytron's darker, sleeker, electroclash-tinged vibe on that album. Witching Hour's “Whitelightgenerator,” “Soft Power,” and “Destroy Everything You Touch” -- which may be the group’s definitive moment -- capture the collage of goth and dream pop they pursued in the mid-2000s, and Velocifero's industrial-inspired edges are defined by “Ghosts” and “Black Cat.” A few key tracks, like Witching Hour's “Sugar” and 604's “He Took Me to a Movie,” are missing, as are some of the band’s more playful tracks like Light & Magic's “Re:Agents,” but the inclusion of the Death in June cover “Little Black Angel” and the quintessentially sleek new song “Ace of Hz” help compensate. Overall, this is a generous, beautifully packaged retrospective of one of the 2000s’ premier synth pop acts.