Once amusingly dubbed "Jedward for those who hate music" by Charlie Brooker, La Roux's eponymous debut album is a fine bit of modern synth/electro-pop. Androgynous, scary-haired Elly Jackson (vocals, keyboards) and Ben Langmaid (keyboards) pay homage to the likes of The Eurythmics and Heaven 17 whilst distinguishing themselves from other so-called "eighties revivalists" through their grasp of the most basic (though frequently overlooked) aspects of pop-craft. Their knack for simple 'n' smart compositions mean catchy songs are in strong supply. Opener and breakthrough single "In For The Kill" embodies this. Paradoxically cold yet ...  Read the complete review

It's pretty much official. 2009 is the year of Electro-pop. The indie bands that dominated the music scene for so long are slowly becoming irrelevant if recent chart performances from the likes of Razorlight, Kaiser Chiefs, The Enemy and others are anything to go by. In their place are the hot new talents of the year such as Lady Gaga, Frankmusik, Little Boots and of course La Roux. Contrary to popular belief La Roux is actually a band. It's very much an Eurythmics type situation as far as the media and the public are concerned. Elly Jackson is of course the very androgynmous, odd looking individual who provides the vocals and is the face of La Roux, but Ben ...  Read the complete review

La Roux is a duo comprising of Eleanor Jackson and Ben Langmaid. Eleanor is the one who does the singing for the most part and Ben is the man behind the music. When I first heard of La Roux I just assumed it was a one person operation and that was her stage name or something (their name comes from Elle's red hair anyway) and was fairly surprised when I found out that there were two of them. Also, Eleanor is the daughter of Trudie Goodwin (June from 'The Bill') which was another surprise to me and is definitely my random fact offering of the day today. I picked up La Roux - La Roux (self titled of course!) recently from Amazon as I saw it reduced down to just ...  Read the complete review

La Roux - La Roux (2009). Elly Jackson & Ben Langmaid are the mainstay of this 80's revival electro pop group, though they do use a drummer and keyboard player. I'll be totally up front and tell you that whilst I have listened to every track I have only downloaded three of the tracks. This is a shameless album that shamelessly takes early 80's sounds like Soft Cell, Flock of Seagulls and even to some extent, Sparks, and tries to turn it into something relevant for today. It does not succeed in my opinion. Yes, the synthesisers are there, yes, her voice is very evocative of the 80's, yes it is 'poppy', in fact all the ...  Read the complete review

My (which is, for the principles of this review 'our') journey begins in January 2009, when I read on the Guardian's online site about La Roux in 'The Ones To Watch: Best of Newcomers in 2009'. I read an interview with her, and watched a video which involved clips of her music videos, along with some backstage stuff. It was interesting, and as a fan of many genres (with a special place in my heart reserved for electronica), with a misguided patriotic belief which is less football hooligan, more 'English electronica rocks (or synths)!' which meant I was quite excited about this development. On the 16th of March 2006 her single In For The Kill debuted at 11 in ...  Read the complete review