Ladytron - Velocifero [Silver]

Three years after Witching Hour reset their sound, Ladytron decamped to Paris and came back with something tougher. Velocifero, the Liverpool band's fourth album and their first for Nettwerk, traded some of the icy glamour of their early records for heavier drums, grinding analog synths and a darker, more physical pulse.

Self-produced and recorded at Grande Armée studio across 2007 and 2008, the album opens with "Black Cat," a free download that signaled the harder direction before release. "Ghosts" became the lead single and one of the band's signature songs, with "Runaway" and "Tomorrow" following as singles. The record's multilingual streak peaks on "Kletva," a cover of a song by Bulgarian rocker Kiril Marichkov of Shturcite, and Daniel Hunt adds vocals to the sweeping closing duet "Versus."

Velocifero became the band's highest-charting album at home, reaching number 75 in the UK, and their first to enter the Billboard 200. The following year they shared a stage with Brian Eno at the Sydney Opera House, a fitting nod for a band that took its name from a Roxy Music song.

This edition spreads the album across four sides of 140-gram silver vinyl, cut at 45 RPM. A sleek, muscular high point of 2000s synth-pop, finally back on wax.