Key To Ignition: Aeroplane, We Can't Fly.

As heavily anticipated as the departure of Pope Benedict XVI from this 'Third World' country we lovingly inhabit, Mediterranean duo Aeroplane have lingered ominously overhead, threatening to drop a blinding blitzkrieg of an LP to put the disco back in Italia for more moons now than Ratzinger's ruined Christmases. However, having segued different coordinates to once-fellow nob twiddler Stephen Fasano, Vito Deluca now flies solo, gliding through We Can't Fly, a glorified voyage through the past thirty years of electropop at gut-churning velocities, velocities that'll have you seeing stars and puking stripes.

Were We Can't Fly a conclusive greatest hits concoction, it'd be hailed as the quintessential collection of glitz, glamour and disco sheen although as a debut outing, it's a little disjointed, at times as cohesive as greaseproof paper. That's not to say We Can't Fly is in any way arthritic, as opener Mountains Of Moscow emerges from the befuddlement of space shuttle hoots and howls, before a euphorically 80s slab of power balladry ruffles manes with ascending strings wining and dining six-string flamboyance that'd make Def Leppard seem all but tame. Title track We Can't Fly changes tact, opting for beguiling infantile vox, before soulful backing synchronicity flounces about with treble-stained guitars and columns of impenetrable synth. Superstar recalls Elton John, were he locking lips with Roxy Music basslines, before frequency-rupturing vocoded lyrics reminiscent of earlier Daft Punk works romp with dramatic crescendo and ceaselessly sensual musical innuendo. I Don't Feel is Tina Turner fronting Holy Bible-era Manics, were Richey Edwards brought up on a diet of perilously pressurised SodaStream and Candi Staton in place of anguish and commercial disdain, whilst Without Lies is Nina Persson fronting Depeche Mode, were Violator translated to life support machine tempo. Good Riddance sounds unerringly akin to Nick Cave's best Fosters-induced Tom Waits take, and Fish In The Sky reeks of excruciating flimsiness, to which its title attests. My Enemy owes more than a touch of operatic bravado and a whiff of Jean-Paul Gaultier to Gaspard Augé and Xavier de Rosnay as it thunders through a rather exhilarating ABBA-meets-Acid Washed conglomeration, and We Fall Over just about lands on the John Hughes side of soundtrack schmaltz. The Van Halen histrionics of The Point Of No Return, bathed until soaked in melancholic minor key majesty and the swooniest of synthetic strings (again) is a little more than rambunctious, and yearns to be beamed down from whichever outer-echelon satellite it is that Muse currently man, whilst Caramellas is Midnight Magic channeled through your tube telly in the form of nostalgically tinged turn of the Millennium ad music. Racier than Hurts' Italo Lento, as bolschy as Berlusconi; it's just a smidgen saddening to be bombarded with such ubiquitous cultural reference. Keep consistency close, and trivialities won't matter in the end...