"History repeats itself," goes the saying, "first as tragedy, second as farce." In the case of 1980s nostalgia, though, history repeated itself as a conflation of the two, a tragic farce that rode obnoxious kitsch into the ground. Hairspray! Bad clothes! Synth-drums! Gag us with a spoon. Ladytron is a refreshing exception; the band might take its name from a Roxy Music song, but it's more indebted to the not-yet-superstar days of Depeche Mode, New Order and Kraftwerk. On Velocifero, those influences coalesce into thick, driving pop songs like "Ghosts," "I'm Not Scared" and "Burning Up." The tracks offer hooks galore, but mostly stay in shadowy territories while singers Helen Marnie and Mira Aroyo deploy their chic with a lethally blasé cool. Ladytron will probably remain cult faves, but songs like "The Lovers" (with its allusions to Kraftwerk's "The Robots") or the slick dance gloom on "Deep Blue" are superstar moves all the same, strong enough to remind you that in this hardly meritocratic music market, even the most modest Eurotrash hopefuls have a chance of making it big.

-- Joshua Klein