Erasure: Snow Globe

The Erasure-penned songs on Snow Globe are so good you wish the 1980s synth-pop veterans had written more of them and not bothered covering chestnuts such as “Silent Night” – rendered here as kitsch retro-modernism, Vince Clarke’s synths bleeping like vintage video arcade games while Andy Bell does his best Mel Tormé impression.

It’s diverting enough but pales in comparison with the likes of “Make It Wonderful” – a sublime electronic hymn to the state of wonderment – and “Loving Man”, a pulsing clubland threnody to a departed lover; the album is dedicated to Bell’s partner Paul Hickey, who died in 2012 and always wanted Erasure to make a Christmas album.

Erasure

Snow Globe

(Mute)