Cicada - Roulette

Q. How many crap electro pop groups will it take to make you hold a pistol to your temple? A. This many. Cicada are really going to wish they hadn’t titled their soggy sophomore album quite so prophetically. Working on a bed of basic snare beats and synth rhythms, Heidrun Bjornsdottir’s Icelandic chirp kicks off a checklist of forerunners, from The Knife’s Karin Dreijer Andersson (an overly generous comparison) to a more realistic parallel with Alphabeat’s Stine Bramsen (Fascinated? I think not). The revolutionary advice offered up on Don’t Stare at the Sun and Love Don’t Come Easy pretty much summarises the depressing level of creativity across the board, although it’s worth holding off the trigger until track five. A mid-album breather comes in the form of a cameo from Editors' Tom Smith, lending a pleasingly sleazy irony and modicum of gravitas to an otherwise vacuous lollipop line-up.