Being the elder statesman of '80s pop must be quite a burden to bear for Duran Duran; how else can the Brummie Music Video Gods explain the lacklustre material they've produced since the mid-late '90s? Several-trick-ponies? Surely not; yet Simon Le Bon and co. were never going to replicate the success of their heyday, even with decent songs like massive 1993 radio hit Ordinary World. Their most recent comeback, with 2004's Astronaut, was made of seriously underwhelming, mediocre pop, and the ensuing departure of founding guitarist Andy Taylor meant that Duran Duran felt the need to not only re-write this, their twelfth studio album, but also to enlist the help of omnipresent 'Midas touch' duo, Timbaland and Justin Timberlake, to inject life into what they presumably felt was a pedestrian collection. Astonishingly, even T&T's involvement fails to create any excitement or buzz here, although their guest appearances (on four of the twelve tracks) are the best of a bad bunch. Nite Runner, one of those arrangements, is frustratingly repetitive despite the uber-producer's trademark slickness, as is the predictable, flat Falling Down, on which Timberlake's influence is nowhere to be heard. Elsewhere, however, the cheesily-titled Box Full O'Honey impresses, its acoustic-based melody providing a welcome respite from the excessive electro bleeps and bloops, whilst Zoom In is an enjoyably skewed pop number, with a melody that swoops and dives yet still clocks in under three and a half minutes. Overall, however, Red Carpet Massacre just sounds like the desperate defence of a band who are trying desperately to move with the times and striving to be relevant in today's musical clime, but failing miserably on both counts.
