Ladyhawke: Time Flies (Warners/digital outlets)

On her first album in more than four years, Ladyhawke (Pip Brown) returns to Eighties dancefloor electro-pop stylings but, despite the crafted surfaces, there's often downbeat reflection, even when channeling Prince-funk on Think About You (“We live in worlds apart, but still you have my heart”).

The opener My Love sets a tone (“would it make you sad to lose my love . . . I'd rather be hurt than be ignored”) and with the catchy Mixed Emotions (“you call and you hear what you want to”) hints at considerable emotional complexity.

The title track neatly juxtaposes intimate expressions (“you call on the telephone to say I've been gone too long”) with an heroic, Oasis-like anthemic chorus (“God only knows what will become, when we're all gone”) .

Loner riffs off something akin to Jawsh 685's reductive Laxed (Siren Beat).

Ladyhawke here delivers 11 mostly mid-tempo songs like letters (and letters-to-self) expressing absence and emotional distance.

The drip-feed of four singles allowed each to appear as self-contained songs, although none – not even the pivotal, moody glam-stomper Guilty Love (“every time I pray I just pray to be free”) with Broods' singer Georgia Nott – cracked the top 20 NZ singles charts dominated by Six60, L.A.B, DRAX Project and Stan Walker.

Time Flies is mature Eighties retro-pop by Ladyhawke who is now 42, but it is released in a climate of Benee and others' YA sounds.

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You can hear this album at Spotify here.