Artistic development doesn't always improve an artist's work, as the members of {$Air} discovered when their second album, 2001's {^10,000 Hz Legend}, disappointed fans and critics expecting another {\pop} masterpiece to rank with their debut, {^Moon Safari}. {^10,000 Hz Legend} buried the duo's clear melodic sense underneath an avalanche of rigid performances, claustrophobic productions, and a restless experimentalism that rarely allowed listeners to enjoy what they were hearing. Gone was the freshness evident on {^Moon Safari}: the alien made familiar, the concept that electronic dance could be turned into a user-friendly medium, the illustration of simplicity and space as assets, not liabilities. Fortunately, {$Air} learned from their mistakes -- or, at least, their limitations -- leading up to the recording of third album {^Talkie Walkie}, and the happy result is a solid middle ground between both of their previous records. The features are kept to a minimum and the tracks are constructed to sound no more complex than they need to be, even though {$Air} risk the assumption that {^Talkie Walkie} is a simple album. While there's nothing present to compete with the plodding glory of {&"Sexy Boy,"} {^Talkie Walkie} ultimately succeeds because of {$Dunckel} and {$Godin}'s renewed contentment to produce the tracks they do better than any other -- ones with a surface prettiness but no great depth. (It's no mystery why they've been tapped for several scores.) Ironically, the one track here that shrugs off the simplicity of electronic {\pop} is a track first heard in a film, {&"Alone in Kyoto,"} an impressionistic string piece originally composed for the {$Sofia Coppola} film {#Lost in Translation}. ~ John Bush, All Music Guide