If there is something genuinely new on Instant Holograms on Metal Film, it comes in addition of men’s voices, from bassist Xavi Muñoz and keyboard player Joe Watson, on songs like “Aerial Troubles,” “Le Coeur et la Force,” and “Esemplastic Creeping Eruption.” This isn’t entirely unexplored territory for Stereolab—Jean-Baptiste Garnero, of the French band Spring, is credited with backing vocals on Mars Audiac Quintet’s “Transporté sans Bouger.” But it isn’t something they have done a lot of. Sadier’s vocals bounced off Gina Morris’ in the early years, then intertwined with Hansen’s, then—rather tragically—played off against her own multi-tracked voice after Hansen died in 2002. (Hansen’s niece, Australian-British songwriter and producer Molly Read, adds “special guest backing vocals” to “Vermona F Transistor,” a neat emotional touch.)
Stereolab were never able to replace the eerily instinctive skein of Hansen and Sadier’s vocals, which were so close they felt like two flowers from the same stem, and it is no slight against Muñoz, Watson, and co. that Instant Holograms on Metal Film’s songs lack the chimerical vocal magic of classic Stereolab. “Aerial Troubles,” with cleverly patchworked vocals from Sadier, Muñoz, Watson, and Merlet, is a nifty musical puzzle but nowhere near as spellbinding as Stereolab in full flight. And on the otherwise excellent “Melodie Is a Wound,” Sadier goes it alone, her voice sounding oddly lonely without its melodic counterparts.
Instant Holograms on Metal Film is a relatively safe album—not exactly a retread of past glories, but far from a great leap forward. Still, a safe Stereolab album is like a middling Can record, which is to say far from the beige wash of most bands’ comfortable late periods. And there are a handful of genuinely beautiful songs, showcasing the sharp melodic skills that are a sometimes overlooked weapon in the Stereolab armor. “Melodie Is a Wound” is an absolute earworm, in the nagging style of “Ping Pong”; “Flashes From Everywhere” is perfectly, stridently melancholic; and the Chemical Chords-ish “If You Remember I Forgot How to Dream Pt. 1” is pop music as positive affirmation, its cool melody like a soft-focus call to arms.
At the same time, Sadier’s lyrics of self-empowerment in the face of capitalist duplicity feel more relevant than we might like, in the second Trump era. “Greed is an unfillable hole,” she trills on “Aerial Troubles,” more sad than angry. “Flawed, the extradition request/Blown, the freedom of conscience,” she solemnly intones on “Melodie Is a Wound,” and we furiously nod our heads in agreement. “Je dis ‘non’/A la guerre,” she concludes on “If You Remember I Forgot How to Dream Pt. 1,” and we eagerly say “non” with her. (When she namechecks philosophers Gilles Deleuze and Félix Guattari’s “rhizomic maze” in “You Remember I Forgot How To Dream Part 2,” she makes the concept sound more improbably dreamy than your average graduate student ever could.)
Stereolab have a reputation as a cerebral band, but as these songs show, their braininess never comes at the expense of emotion: These are angry, sad, hopeful songs that offer catharsis and solidarity. This mixture—of pulsating brains and jangling nerves, beating hearts and open minds—may be the closest we get to the essence of Stereolab; and in this, Instant Holograms on Metal Film is a laudable comeback.
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