Album Review: Instant Holograms On Metal Film by Stereolab

On Instant Holograms on Metal Film, Stereolab return not just with new music, but with renewed purpose. The band's first studio album in 15 years asks how we might live meaningfully amid systems built on exploitation and decay. Their answer: we create, we pay attention, and we remain responsible to each other. Stereolab's sound remains unmistakable, yet newly expansive.

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One of alternative music's most beloved outfits return with their first album in 15 years, sounding as elegant, refined and exploratory as ever Recent years have seen various bands reform, many taking advantage of touring opportunities around album anniversaries. When bands have accompanied this with new material the results have often been variable, with new output often not matching the standards they had achieved in earlier phases of their existence. With the unexpected but hugely welcome release of 11th album Instant Holograms On Metal Film (their first since 2010's Not Music), it is clear this emphatically does not apply to Stereolab.

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Instant Holograms on Metal Film, their first proper studio album in 15 years, doesn't so much open a new chapter as it does confirm the band's existing reputation. It's like they ran out of archival material to reissue and had to make some new songs instead, since everything about the album screams classic Stereolab: the non-sequitur of a title, the retrofuturist artwork, and the bounty of cosmic lounge pop. What stands out most about Instant Holograms isn't the lavishly layered beauty of Stereolab's radiant exotica, but rather the simplicity at the core of even their grandest arrangements.

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Instant Holograms on Metal Film fits so seamlessly into their near-faultless canon that you can't help but wonder why critics didn't always appreciate them the first time around. During the band's heyday, music critics seemed to prefer soliloquising about Stereolab to actually listening to them. Whether it was snarky take-downs of their socialist call-to-arms lyrics, feigned exhaustion at their aesthetic idiosyncrasies, or out-and-out dismay at their dedication to slowly and delicately refining what had become a relatively flawless formula, the discourse surrounding Stereolab seemed to outgrow and overshadow their excellent and at times genuinely transcendent work.

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Every reunion faces the same question: Can the pieces still come together? For Stereolab, the magic has always been the pieces--their friction, their harmony, their interlocking together. The band's first album since 2010's Not Music, Instant Holograms on Metal Film, proves that nothing has come loose over the last 15 years. Pulling melodies, textures, and ideas from both the pop mainstream and the avant-garde, Stereolab has always made the radical sound inviting.

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Stereolab fans have expressed concerns in recent weeks that the Groop appear to be using AI to create the music video for the album's single 'Aerial Troubles'. Some viewers suggest it goes against the band's progressive stance - estimates suggest that ChatGPT uses enough energy per day to charge eight million phones, or to run the Empire State Building for 540 days. Others insist that the video is meant to look like it was created with AI, but actually isn't.

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