7/10

For a band that once sounded like the future reimagining the past, Stereolab’s first album in over a decade and a half arrives like the reactivation of a long-dormant signal. 'Instant Holograms On Metal Film' invites us to decode its frequencies like some strange, beautiful transmission from a parallel timeline.

Stereolab have always played with perception of genre and structure. Here, that ethos crystallises into something both playful and heady. The album is as indebted to krautrock’s motorik insistence as it is to analogue synth psychedelia and French new wave sophistication. But it’s the feeling of the record that lingers, like scanning late-night television with the aerial half-tuned.

Highlighted by the previously teased 'Aerial Troubles', the album immediately signals its layered nature. The track clicks and pulses with both purpose and abstraction, weaving spectral electronics through the sinew of a locked groove. The previously released 'Melodie Is A Wound' follows in a graceful, hypnotic, and slightly haunted way. There’s a melodic melancholy beneath its pulse that suggests more than just nostalgic charm: this is a band reflecting on what it means to persist.

Throughout the thirteen tracks, 'Instant Holograms On Metal Film' avoids grand climaxes in favour of gliding transitions, blurred edges, and recurring motifs. There’s joy in the repetition, but also tension. The guitars shimmer. Synths bubble and whirl. Laetitia Sadier’s vocals guide us through lyrical puzzles as elliptical as the album’s promotion campaign.

Sixteen years since their hiatus, Stereolab have returned with a deepening reinvention. 'Instant Holograms On Metal Film' is about mapping out a version of the present that only they could imagine. Equal parts riddle and reverie, it’s a glorious reminder that true innovation rarely shouts. Sometimes, it hums quietly through the walls, waiting to be found.