CocoRosie - Grey Oceans

(PIAS)

Remember trip-hop pantywaists Sneaker Pimps? Disconcerting swathes of this fourth long-player from CocoRosie will jog your memory if need be. Thankfully the US-born, Paris-based sisters’ foray into cry-baby drum’n’bass is bedimmed by a collage of folk, pop, electronica, jazz and opera – although it does verge on wilfully weird; and it does cross the line into musical theatre in the shocking, Broadway-touting ‘Hopscotch’. Gramophone chorale ‘Undertaker’, piano elegy ‘Grey Oceans’ and experimental ballad ‘RIP Burn Face’ fare better: they loosely elicit Joanna Newsom and Björk, and almost distract us from that artwork. Dear God, would you look at it.